been made into French and preserved in the library.

One of these titles especially attracted my attention. It ran as
follows: VITA ET OBITUS DNI RICARDI RAYNAL HEREMITAE.

Upon my asking to see this and its companions, I was conducted to a
dusty shelf in the little upstairs book-room, and was informed that I
might do as I pleased there for two hours, until the _Ave Maria_ rang,
and the doors would be locked.

When the librarian had gone with many nods and smiles, I took down
these half dozen books and carried them to the table by the window, and
until _Ave Maria_ rang I turned their pages.

The volume whose title had especially attracted my attention was a
quarto MS., written, I should suppose from the caligraphy, about the end
of the sixteenth century; a later hand had appended a summary to each
chapter with an appropriate quotation from a psalm. But the book was in
a shocking condition, without binding, and contained no more than a
fragment. The last page was numbered "341," and the first page+ "129."
One hundred and twenty-eight pages, therefore, were certainly lost at
the beginning, and I know not how many at the end; but what was left was
sufficiently engrossing to hold me standing by the window, until the
wrinkled face of the priest looked in again to inform me that unless I
wished to sleep in the library, I must be gone at once.

On the following morning by nine o'clock I was there again; and, after
an interview with the Superior, went up again with the keys in my own
possession, a quantity of foolscap and a fountain-pen in my hand, and
sandwiches in my pocket, to the dusty little room beneath the roof.