pirits?"

"Human beings don't generally amuse themselves in this way," returned
Chowles. "But hark!--I still hear the music.--They are above--in Saint
Paul's."

"Then I will join them," said Judith. "I am resolved to see the end of
it."

"Don't leave me behind," returned Chowles, following her. "I would
rather keep company with Beelzebub and all his imps than be alone."

Both were too well acquainted with the way to need any light. Ascending
the broad stone steps, they presently emerged into the cathedral, which
they found illumined by the same glimmering light as the lower church,
and they perceived the ghostly assemblage gathered into an immense ring,
and dancing round the tall skeleton, who continued beating his drum, and
uttering a strange gibbering sound, which was echoed by the others. Each
moment the dancers increased the swiftness of their pace, until at last
it grew to a giddy whirl, and then, all at once, with a shriek of
laughter, the whole company fell to the ground.

Chowles and Judith, then, for the first time, understood, from the
confusion that ensued, and the exclamations uttered, that they were no
spirits they had to deal with, but beings of the same mould as
themselves. Accordingly, they approached the party of masquers, for such
they proved, and found on inquiry that they were a party of young
gallants, who, headed by the Earl of Rochester--the representative of
the tall skeleton--had determined to realize the Dance of Death, as once
depicted on the walls of an ancient cloister at the north of the
cathedral, called Pardon-churchyard, on the walls of which, says Stowe,
were "artificially and richly painted the Dance of Macabre, or Dance of
Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's, the like whereof was painted
about Saint Innocent's, at Paris. The metres, or poesy of this dance,"
proceeds the same authority, "were translated out of Trench into English
by John Lydgate, monk of Bury, and, with the picture of Death leading
all estates, painted about the cloister, at the special request and
expense of Jenkin Carpenter, in the reign of Henry the Sixth."
Pardon-churchyard was pulled down by the Protector Somerset, in the
reign of Edward the Sixth, and the materials employed in the erection of
his own palace in the Strand. It was the discussion of these singular
paintings, and of the designs on the same subject ascribed to Holbein,
that led the Earl of Rochester and his companions to propose the
fanta