ed up during the time the prayers
lasted. She neither knelt when others knelt, nor stood when
they stood. Once only, when the organ sounded the first notes
of one of the most beautiful anthems of our church, she rose
from her seat almost mechanically, and an instant after
resumed her former attitude. At the conclusion of the service,
when the worshippers had all left the cathedral, Mr. Lacy
passed near the place where the stranger still remained in a
state of apparent abstraction; the sound of his approaching
footsteps startled her; she hastily withdrew, and walked
rapidly out of the church, and down one of the small streets
that faced the entrance door. Two or three times during the
succeeding fortnight, Mr. Lacy noticed the same person
occupying the same place, and conducting herself in the same
manner. His interest was powerfully excited, but he neither
ventured to address her, nor could he succeed in ascertaining
from the vergers, or from one or two other persons whom he
questioned on the subject, anything respecting her. Chance,
however, as it often happens in such cases, threw the
information he sought in his way.

He was sitting one evening in his room, busily engaged in
preparing his sermon for the Feast of All Saints, which
occurred on the ensuing day, and on which it was his turn to
preach, when he was disturbed by a knock at the door, and the
subsequent entrance of an elderly woman, whom he had known for
many years, and who had been in the habit of consulting him
whenever any little scruple of conscience disturbed her in the
exercise of her line of business, which was no other than that
of lodging-letting. Mr. Lacy was so well acquainted with the
character of his old friend, and with the nature of the
difficulties usually submitted to him, that, after begging her
to sit down, and draw her chair close to the fire, (for the
last day of October was ushering in with suitable severity the
first of November,) he immediately began--

"Well, my good Mrs. Denley, any more drunken lodgers, whom you
keep on, for fear that no one but yourself would help them up
to their rooms, and see that they did not spend the night in a
less comfortable place than their beds? or are you still
doubting as to the propriety of giving notice to quit to the
gentleman who spoils your furniture, and never pays his rent,
thereby keeping you from sending Johnny to school, as you had
intended?"

"No, no, Sir; it has nothing to do with d