ce more whether you
have courage to look on what I am prepared to show?"

"I own, sir," said Lady Bothwell, "that your words strike me with some
sense of fear; but whatever my sister desires to witness, I will not
shrink from witnessing along with her."

"Nay, the danger only consists in the risk of your resolution failing
you. The sight can only last for the space of seven minutes; and should
you interrupt the vision by speaking a single word, not only would the
charm be broken, but some danger might result to the spectators. But
if you can remain steadily silent for the seven minutes, your curiosity
will be gratified without the slightest risk; and for this I will engage
my honour."

Internally Lady Bothwell thought the security was but an indifferent
one; but she suppressed the suspicion, as if she had believed that the
adept, whose dark features wore a half-formed smile, could in reality
read even her most secret reflections. A solemn pause then ensued, until
Lady Forester gathered courage enough to reply to the physician, as he
termed himself, that she would abide with firmness and silence the sight
which he had promised to exhibit to them. Upon this, he made them a low
obeisance, and saying he went to prepare matters to meet their wish,
left the apartment. The two sisters, hand in hand, as if seeking by that
close union to divert any danger which might threaten them, sat down on
two seats in immediate contact with each other--Jemima seeking support
in the manly and habitual courage of Lady Bothwell; and she, on the
other hand, more agitated than she had expected, endeavouring to fortify
herself by the desperate resolution which circumstances had forced her
sister to assume. The one perhaps said to herself that her sister never
feared anything; and the other might reflect that what so feeble-minded
a woman as Jemima did not fear, could not properly be a subject of
apprehension to a person of firmness and resolution like her own.

In a few moments the thoughts of both were diverted from their own
situation by a strain of music so singularly sweet and solemn that,
while it seemed calculated to avert or dispel any feeling unconnected
with its harmony, increased, at the same time, the solemn excitation
which the preceding interview was calculated to produce. The music
was that of some instrument with which they were unacquainted; but
circumstances afterwards led my ancestress to believe that it was that
of the harm