the birds, who, deceived by the light, started from their nests, and the low murmurs of the wind amongst the branches, altogether produced an effect upon Madeline that wrought her feelings up to agony.
Yet was that agony, if possible, increased when she entered the valley;—horror then seized her soul; and she shuddered as she thought she might, at that very moment perhaps, be treading in the steps of the Countess's murderers. The chapel was lighted up, but the light which gleamed from its windows, by rendering the decay and desolation of the building more conspicuous, served rather to increase than diminish its horrors; from its shattered towers the owls now hooted, and the ravens croaked amidst the surrounding trees, as if singing their nightly song of death, o'er the mouldering bodies which lay beneath them.
Father Bertrand met the procession as it entered the chapel; calmness and resignation in his look, but a more than usual paleness
