The guests bowed deeply to the mourning parent, and withdrew with their hospitable guide.
Another winding stair conducted them to an apartment of the same size with that which they had first entered, occupying indeed the storey immediately above. From this room, ere yet the door was opened, proceeded a low and melancholy strain of vocal music. When they entered, they found themselves in the presence of about twenty matrons and maidens of distinguished Saxon lineage. Four maidens, Rowena leading the choir, raised a hymn for the soul of the deceased, of which we have only been able to decypher two or three stanzas:—
Dust unto dust,
To this all must;
The tenant hath resign'd
The faded form
To waste and worm—
Corruption claims her kind.
Through paths unknown
Thy soul hath flown,
To seek the realms of woe,
