One evening that she was sitting alone, in the oak room, her thoughts wandered to the extent of the abbey, what a large place it must have been in days gone by. It formed a quadrangle, and the window she was now at looked into the court-yard, whence all the sides were visible. The front pile and the right side were the only inhabited parts., Mrs. Pommeroy remembered a boast she had once made-that should she ever be the abbey's lady, she would cause it to be renovated, so that the county should not know it again. Opposite to her was the west wing, and those rooms she had never seen. A sudden inclination came to her that she would look over them now, and she gave her orders. Jerome, the old attendant of the late lord, appeared with a large bunch of keys, some were labelled, some were not, and they proceeded through the lower corridor of the inhabited north wing, to what was called the north

Jerome fumbled over his keys, and, unlocking the door, they ascended the narrow staircase of the tower, Mrs. Pommeroy folding her skirts closely round her. There were several rooms in the west wing, all opening in a line, one into the other, but this wing was narrow, only the breadth of each room. They bore some scant remains of furniture, though the hangings were dropping to pieces. When they came to the last room-Jerome called it so-Mrs. Pommeroy detected a small door at its end covered with tapestry. "Jerome," she exclaimed, "this must lead into the west tower."

The old man had turned to one of the windows, and was looking steadfastly down into the court. Mrs. Pommeroy repeated her remark. "This door, Jerome. Open it."

"That room is never entered," he replied.

"Never entered!" returned Mrs. Pommeroy. "Why not? I shall enter it."

"I have not got the key," returned Jerome. "Where is it, then?"

Jerome hesitated.

"Maybe-maybe the lord keeps it. That's the

haunted room, madam."

Mrs. Pommeroy had heard of the haunted room, both before she entered the abbey and since. Not being a believer in immaterial bodies, she became possessed with a strong desire to explore it.

"Has the lady never heard that apparitions have been seen there ?" returned Jerome, in a tone of awe.

"Apparitions don't come in the daylight, before the sun has set," promptly replied the lady of Pommeroy. "You go back, Jerome, and hunt among all the heap of keys in that key closet of yours, and find the right one."

Jerome had no power to say he would not go. He turned unwillingly, and attempted to take the bunch of keys which hung to the lock, the lock of the room they were in. No: try as he would, he could not take them out of it.

"You do not want those keys to find the other," said Mrs. Pommeroy. "Leave them where they are."

"I think this key will only come out when the door's closed and locked," muttered Jerome, but trying still.

He went away at length, leaving them where they were. Mrs. Pommeroy, as much to pass the time as anything, touched the keys, and out

they came. "What a curious thing that Jerome could not do it!" thought she. " "They seemed to fall out, into my hand."

She held them, and read their labels, which indicated the particular room each belonged to. On one, however, was simply written "The Key." "The key?" debated Mrs. Pommeroy, "that must be the key of the haunted room, I should think. I'll try it."

She drew aside the hangings, inserted it in the lock, and, with a harsh, grating sound, the door flew open, the wind and the dust blowing unpleasantly in the face of Mrs. Pommeroy.

She shrank back. Her courage failed. By daylight or by dark, it is not pleasant to enter alone a "haunted" room. Mrs. Pommeroy went back to the casement and stood looking into the court. There she saw one of the servant women, and, obeying an impulse, she pulled open, with some trouble, the casement, trellised with its small panes, and signed to her to come up. Bridget was a native of Abbeyland, was born on the estate, and knew all the traditions relating to the Pommeroys. She looked thunderstruck at seeing her lady there, but obeyed the signal; came through the north corridor, ascended the stairs of the tower, passed through the rooms, and joined her.

"Hold these hangings back for me," said Mrs. Pommeroy. "They are nothing but a cloud of dust."

"Does the lady

"Come with me, Bridget."

The woman obeyed, but with a wondering gesture. of Pommeroy know what this room is ?" "Yes," said Mrs. Pommeroy, passing in. It was a small, circular room, panelled with dark mahogany. A narrow casement looked towards the court-yard, but, like the other rooms, none to the opposite side, to the open country. The room was completely furnished with velvet that had once been red but was now dark with age; chairs, a broad couch, or settle, and a centre table, all were covered and hung with the velvet, which appeared to be dropping away. Mrs. Pommeroy saw no signs of haunting apparitions: all that struck her, was the smallness of the room. She remarked upon it.

"The tower walls are thick, madam."

"Very thick indeed they must be," observed Mrs. Pommeroy, “looking at the size of the tower, outside, and the size of this room, in. But the walls are not thick, Bridget: look at the window. What is that ?" she added, as her eye became accustomed to the dark walls. "Why, that is a cloth, a velvet cloth, drawn over one of the panels." "The picture is underneath," whispered the woman. "I am niece to the old housekeeper, who died in the late lord's time, madam, and I have all the secrets of the abbey at my fingers' ends," she explained.

"But what picture is underneath?" demanded Mrs. Pommeroy. "The nun's," replied Bridget; "she who was said to haunt the room. Would the lady of Pommeroy like to look at it ?"

Mrs. Pommeroy signified her assent, and the woman caught up the velvet and held it aside, disclosing a half-length figure, habited as a nun. The face was young, fair, and most lovely, but a strangely mournful and stern expression was in the dark blue eyes, which were fixed full on the spectator. The lips were slightly open, and one delicate hand was held up in a warning attitude.

"She is saying 'Beware,'" whispered Bridget, who appeared to be afraid of the picture hearing her.

Mrs. Pommeroy laughed. "I don't hear her," she answered; "but fancy goes a great way. Beware of what?"

"It is what she is supposed to be saying, madam, according to the tradition. But why she is saying it, or who she is saying it to, has never been decided."

"What is her history ?"

"She lived in the reign of one of the Georges," began Bridget. "She was brought up in a convent and had taken the veil, though only seventeen, but in some way she fell in with him who was then lord of Pommeroy. It was said to be in the fire, for the convent was burnt down, and the nuns had to escape in the night. She forgot her vows, madam, and ran away with him, to be his wife. He married her in secret, and he brought her here, and their rooms were in this wing, this room being hers. The lord doted on her, it is said, and he had this picture taken of her in her convent dress, and hung up here: but, when it was too late, she found out he had played her false, for he had a wife already. She went crazed, poor thing, all in one night, and she threw herself out at this very window, and was taken up dead in the court below."

Mrs. Pommeroy looked at the window. "She never could have got through that narrow half casement, Bridget. The other half does not open.

"It is certain that she did, madam: she was young and slight. For years afterwards, during that lord's lifetime, she was seen at this same window on a moonlight night-the moon shines full on these west tower windows-her light hair hanging over her neck and wringing her hands, as it is said she did, before she leaped out. But after the lord died, she never came again. You can't see the prediction, madam," added Bridget, pointing to the picture, "not to read it, I think. This room's dark in the after part of the day, because the sun goes behind the tower." "The prediction ?" repeated Mrs. Pommeroy.

" On

"It is the strangest part of the history," continued Bridget. the morrow, when they had picked her up dead, the lord saw some lines written on the picture, close to the hand which she is holding up. It was never known who wrote them; some thought she did, but the lord knew that the characters were not hers, and they came to be regarded as having been done by supernatural agency. On a bright day they can be read without a light, but not when the room's in the shade. Some thought they applied to what that lord had done, but it is mostly held that they are to affect a later Pommeroy. It's to be hoped not, for they betoken woe to the house."

Mrs. Pommeroy had put her face and eyes close to the picture, endeavouring to decipher the lines: but she was unable, though she could discern that some were there. Bridget continued:

"The late lord—the one who had done the wrong was his grandfather -put little faith in all this, and I have heard him laugh over it. He did not keep the room or the wing shut up, and any of the family could come in who liked, and we had to dust and clean here once or twice a

year. But the present lord had it shut up after he came into power: the Pommeroys are a proud race, the lord especially, and he deems the picture a memento of the blot on the scutcheon of his ancestors. So he keeps the curtain down over it-that the bad lord had put—and the rooms locked."

"But-it is going a round-about way to work, to attain his end," cried Mrs. Pommeroy. Why not destroy the picture, and have done with it, and have the rooms thrown open and embellished? I shall suggest it to the lord."

Bridget shook her head. "Not a Pommeroy dare destroy that picture. It has been handed down from father to son, since the time of the sinning lord that, whoever does so, must look out to be repaid; for that, in his time, the prediction will be fulfilled."

"I wish I could see the prediction," cried curious Mrs. Pommeroy, not feeling altogether pleased that Guy should have kept her in the dark, and the delightfully marvellous story from her. "Suppose you fetch a candle, Bridget."

"Will the lady like to remain alone?" hesitated the servant, halting at the threshold.

The lady of Pommeroy settled that, by motioning the woman to hold back the hangings, and stepping down into the next room. There she took up her station at the open window, and leaned from it, that the evening air might be company until Bridget's return.

As Bridget was going down the tower stairs she met Jerome. "Where do you spring from?" he exclaimed, in astonishment.

"The lady of Pommeroy called me, and I have been into the haunted room with her. I am going to fetch a light now, that she may see the lines on the nun's picture.'

Jerome's mouth dropped, and his hands were lifted. "In there!" he muttered to himself, "and the lord said it was never to be opened to her -that she was too young to be frighted with such tales. She found the key, then, after all my excuses! What possessed the bunch, I wonder, that I could not get it away from the lock?"

"Why, Jerome," exclaimed the lady of Pommeroy, "the key was on the bunch!"

"As I find, madam. Pity I did not look more particularly."

Bridget came back with the light, and they all went into the room: Mrs. Pommeroy took it from her hand, and held it close to the lines on the picture. Bridget looked on composedly, and Jerome in abstraction.

When the heir of Pommeroy goes forth a wife to win,
And the heir of Pommeroy goes forth in vain :
When the lord of Pommeroy by a lie doth gain,

Then woe to the Pommeroys, twain and twain!

Barely had Mrs. Pommeroy read this, when a shriek from Bridget caused her to start back. She had inadvertently held the wax-light too closely, and had set fire to the picture.

NOTES ON NOTE-WORTHIES,

OF DIVERS ORDERS, EITHER SEX, AND EVERY AGE.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

And make them men of note (do you note, men?)—Love's Labour's Lost, Act III. Sc. 1.

D. Pedro. Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. D. Pedro. Why these are very crotchets that he speaks, Notes, notes, forsooth, and noting!

Much Ado About Nothing, Act II. Sc. 3.

And these to Notes are frittered quite away.-Dunciad, Book I.

Notes of exception, notes of admiration,

Notes of assent, notes of interrogation.—Amen Corner, c. iii.

IT has been well and truly-too truly-said of Vittoria Colonna, that her influence was personal, and vanished when she left the scene. M. Lefevre Deumier epigrammatically says of her, that, living, she passed for a divinity-dead, she is not even a saint. La reine d'Italie, Michelet calls her, "celle qui fut le centre des penseurs italiens, la poésie de Michel-Ange et son sublime amour."* But, as the appreciative biographer who recently did his best to rehabilitate her is constrained to own, with her death seemed to die out the enthusiasm she had excited. "Une fois que la mort a mis la main sur notre idole, elle a tué du même coup notre enthousiasme. Notre encens viager s'évapore."† Or, to adopt an English critic's paraphrase of the last sentence, Reputation is a life-annuity, whereas Fame is funded capital.

The same critic rightly enough calls Fame "feminine in caprice"some of the noisiest reputations leaving no echo, while others, equally noisy and less meritorious, contrive to catch the ear of Fame, and to be heard by future generations. "But moralise as we may, it is useless to rebel against these caprices. The accidents of Fame are final. When the world has once consented to forget a celebrity, no eloquence, no industry, no invective, will secure a rehabilitation. The neglect may be unjust, and the biographic archaeologist may be erudite, eloquent, and earnest; but, after listening to him for a while, we relapse once more into indifference." So quick, as the crossed-in-love Athenian has it,

So quick bright things come to confusion.‡

That the Marchesa di Pescara, however, once so famous, laudata a

* Michelet, Hist. de France au XVIo Siècle, t. viii. p. 273.

Vittoria Colonna, par J. Lefevre Deumier. 1856.

Mids. Night's Dream.