were nearly so. Of
the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very
little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and
three broken upright mullions of uneven heights alone remained. This
was all that remained of the old window, but a transom or cross-bar
of stone had been added to protect the carved stone-work of the
sides, and save the form of the aperture from further ruin. That this
transom was modern was to be seen from the magnificent height and
light grace of the workmanship in the other windows, in which the
long slender mullions rose from the lower stage or foundation of the
whole up into the middle tracery of the arch without protection or
support, and then lost themselves among the curves, not running up
into the roof or soffit, and there holding on as though unable to
stand alone. Such weakness as that had not as yet shown itself in
English church architecture when Matching Priory was built.

"Is it not beautiful!" said Glencora. "I do love it so! And there is
a peculiar feeling of cold about the chill of the moon, different
from any other cold. It makes you wrap yourself up tight, but it does
not make your teeth chatter; and it seems to go into your senses
rather than into your bones. But I suppose that's nonsense," she
added, after a pause.

"Not more so than what people are supposed to talk by moonlight."

"That's unkind. I'd like what I say on such an occasion to be more
poetical or else more nonsensical than what other people say under
the same circumstances. And now I'll tell you why I always think of
you when I come here by moonlight."

"But I suppose you don't often come."

"Yes, I do; that is to say, I did come very often when we had the
full moon in August. The weather wasn't like this, and I used to run
out through the open windows and nobody knew where I was gone. I made
him come once, but he didn't seem to care about it. I told him that
part of the refectory wall was falling; so he looked at that, and
had a mason sent the next day. If anything is out of order he has
it put to rights at once. There would have been no ruins if all the
Pallisers had been like him."

"So much the better for the world."

"No;--I say no. Things may live too long. But now I'm going to tell
you. Do you remember that night I brought you home from the play to
Queen Anne Street?"

"Indeed I do,--very well."

Alice had occasion to remember it, for it had been in the carriage on