as impregnated. The second
pair scattered flowers.

After these followed, in due and majestic order, the females who
composed the choir--six, who from their black scapularies, and black
veils over their white garments, appeared to be professed nuns of the
order of Mount Carmel; and as many whose veils, being white, argued them
to be novices, or occasional inhabitants in the cloister, who were
not as yet bound to it by vows. The former held in their hands large
rosaries, while the younger and lighter figures who followed carried
each a chaplet of red and white roses. They moved in procession around
the chapel, without appearing to take the slightest notice of Kenneth,
although passing so near him that their robes almost touched him, while
they continued to sing. The knight doubted not that he was in one of
those cloisters where the noble Christian maidens had formerly openly
devoted themselves to the services of the church. Most of them had been
suppressed since the Mohammedans had reconquered Palestine, but many,
purchasing connivance by presents, or receiving it from the clemency
or contempt of the victors, still continued to observe in private the
ritual to which their vows had consecrated them. Yet, though Kenneth
knew this to be the case, the solemnity of the place and hour, the
surprise at the sudden appearance of these votaresses, and the
visionary manner in which they moved past him, had such influence on his
imagination that he could scarce conceive that the fair procession
which he beheld was formed of creatures of this world, so much did
they resemble a choir of supernatural beings, rendering homage to the
universal object of adoration.

Such was the knight's first idea, as the procession passed him, scarce
moving, save just sufficiently to continue their progress; so that,
seen by the shadowy and religious light which the lamps shed through the
clouds of incense which darkened the apartment, they appeared rather to
glide than to walk.

But as a second time, in surrounding the chapel, they passed the spot on
which he kneeled, one of the white-stoled maidens, as she glided by him,
detached from the chaplet which she carried a rosebud, which dropped
from her fingers, perhaps unconsciously, on the foot of Sir Kenneth. The
knight started as if a dart had suddenly struck his person; for, when
the mind is wound up to a high pitch of feeling and expectation,
the slightest incident, if unexpected, gives fire to the