had made him very dear to all his dependants, and
more hearts wept for him than he would ever have believed possible.

But there was one person in especial to whom it was felt the news ought
to be sent. The Prior despatched no meaner member of the Order, but
went himself to tell the dark tidings at Romsey.

He pleaded hard for a private interview with the Countess, but the
reigning Abbess of Romsey was a great stickler for rule, and she decided
that it was against precedent, and therefore propriety, that one of her
nuns should be thus singled out from the rest. The announcement must be
made in the usual way, to the whole convent, at vespers.

So, in the well-known tones of the Prior of Ashridge,--some time the
Earl's confessor, and his frequent visitor,--with the customary request
to pray for the repose of the dead, to the ears of Mother Margaret, as
she knelt in her stall with the rest, came the sound of the familiar
name of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall.

Very tender and pathetic was the tone in which the intimation was given.
The heart of the Prior himself was so wrung that he could not imagine
such a feeling as indifference in that of the woman who had been the
dearest thing earth held for that dead man. But if he looked down the
long row of black, silent figures for any sign or sound, he looked in
vain. There was not even a trembling of Mother Margaret's black veil as
her voice rose untroubled in the response with all the rest--

"_O Jesu dulcis! O Jesu pie!
O Jesu, Fili Maria!
Dona eis requiem_."

In the recreation-time which followed, the Prior sought out Mother
Margaret. He found her without difficulty, seated on a form at the side
of the room, talking to a sister nun, and he caught a few words of the
conversation as he approached.

"I assure thee, Sister Regina, it is quite a mistake. Mother Wymarca
told me distinctly that the holy Mother gave Sister Maud an unpatched
habit, and it is all nonsense in her to say there was a patch on the
elbow."

The Prior bit his lips, but he restrained himself, and sat down,
reverently saluted by both nuns as he did so. Was she trying to hide
her feelings? thought he.

"Sister Margaret, I brought you tidings," he said, as calmly as was in
him.

The nun turned upon him a pair of cold, steel-blue eyes, as calm and
irresponsive as if he had brought her no tidings whatever.

"I heard them, Father, if it please you. Has he left any will?"

The priest-natur