Lyon Berners could only gaze on her with infinite compassion, expressed

in every lineament of his eloquent countenance.

She observed this, and quickly, with a great effort, from a strong

resolution, throwing her hands apart like one who disperses a cloud, and

casts off a weight, she said: "It is over! I will not be nervous or hysterical again. I have brought

trouble on you as well as on myself, dear Lyon; but I will show you that

I can bear it. I will look this calamity firmly in the face, and come

what may, I will not drag you down by sinking under it."

And so saying, she gave him her hand, and arose and followed him as he

pushed on before, breaking down or bearing aside the branches that

overhung and obstructed the path.

Half an hour of this difficult and tedious travelling brought them down

into a deep dark dell, in the midst of which stood the "Haunted Chapel."

It was an old colonial church, a monument of the earliest settlement in

the valley. It was now a wild and beautiful ruin, with its surroundings

all glowing with color and sparkling with light. In itself it was a

small Gothic edifice, built of the dark iron-grey rock dug from the

mountain quarries. Its walls, window-frames, and roof were all still

standing, and were almost entirely covered by creepers, among which the

wild rose vine, now full of scarlet berries, was conspicuous.

A broken stonewall overgrown with brambles enclosed the old church-yard,

where a few fallen and mouldering gravestones, half sunk among the dead

leaves, still remained.

All around the church, on the bottom of the dell, and up the sides of

the steeps, were thickly clustered forest-trees, now glowing refulgent

in their gorgeous autumn livery of crimson and gold, scarlet and purple.

A little rill, an offspring of the Black Torrent, tumbled down the side

of the mountain behind the church, and ran frolicking irreverently

through the old graveyard. The great cascade was out of sight, though

very near for its thunder filled the air.

"See," said Sybil, pointing to the little singing rill; "Nature is

unsympathetic. She can laugh and frolic over the dead, and, besides, the

suffering."

"It would seem, then, that Nature is wiser as well as gladder than we

are; since she, who is transitory, rejoices while we, who are immortal,

pine," answered Lyon Berners, pleased that any thought should win her

from the contemplation of her misfortune.

He then led the way into the old ruined church through the door frames,

from which the doors had long been lost. The stone floor, and the stone

altar still remained; all else within the building was gone.

Lyon Berners looked all around, up and down the interior, from the

arched ceiling to the side-walls with their window spaces and the

flagstone floor with its mouldy seams. The wild creeping vines nearly

filled the window spaces, and shaded the interior more beautifully than

carved shutters, velvet curtains, or even stained glass could have done.

The flagstone floor was strewn with fallen leaves that had drifted in.

Up and down, in every nook and corner of the roof and windows, last

year's empty birds nests perched. And here and there along the walls,

the humble "mason's" little clay house stuck.




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