is many a great estate; outwardly
swept and garnished, and inwardly full of all uncleanliness, and
dead men's bones.'

At this moment two cloaked and veiled figures came up to the door,
followed by a servant. There was no mistaking those delicate
footsteps, and the two young men drew back with fluttering hearts,
and breathed out silent blessings on the ministering angels, as they
entered the crazy and reeking house.

'I'm thinking, sir,' said Tregarva, as they walked slowly and
reluctantly away, 'that it is hard of the gentlemen to leave all
God's work to the ladies, as nine-tenths of them do.'

'And I am thinking, Tregarva, that both for ladies and gentlemen,
prevention is better than cure.'

'There's a great change come over Miss Argemone, sir. She used not
to be so ready to start out at midnight to visit dying folk. A
blessed change!'

Lancelot thought so too, and he thought that he knew the cause of
it.

Argemone's appearance, and their late conversation, had started a
new covey of strange fancies. Lancelot followed them over hill and
dale, glad to escape a moment from the mournful lessons of that
evening; but even over them there was a cloud of sadness. Harry
Verney's last words, and Argemone's accidental whisper about 'a
curse upon the Lavingtons,' rose to his mind. He longed to ask
Tregarva, but he was afraid--not of the man, for there was a
delicacy in his truthfulness which encouraged the most utter
confidence; but of the subject itself; but curiosity conquered.

'What did Old Harry mean about the Nun-pool?' he said at last.
'Every one seemed to understand him.'

'Ah, sir, he oughtn't to have talked of it! But dying men, at
times, see over the dark water into deep things--deeper than they
think themselves. Perhaps there's one speaks through them. But I
thought every one knew the story.'

'I do not, at least.'

'Perhaps it's so much the better, sir.'

'Why? I must insist on knowing. It is necessary--proper, that is--
that I should hear everything that concerns--'

'I understand, sir; so it is; and I'll tell you. The story goes,
that in the old Popish times, when the nuns held Whitford Priors,
the first Mr. Lavington that ever was came from the king with a
warrant to turn them all out, poor souls, and take the lands for his
own. And they say the head lady of them--prioress, or abbess, as
they called her--withstood him, and cursed him, in the name of the