the night before; and thus it came to pass that I have the manuscript
of "My Lady Ludlow" now lying by me.


Mr. Dawson had often come in and out of the room during the time that
his sister had been telling us about Lady Ludlow. He would stop, and
listen a little, and smile or sigh as the case might be. The Monday
after the dear old lady had wound up her tale (if tale it could be
called), we felt rather at a loss what to talk about, we had grown so
accustomed to listen to Mrs. Dawson. I remember I was saying, "Oh,
dear! I wish some one would tell us another story!" when her brother
said, as if in answer to my speech, that he had drawn up a paper all
ready for the Philosophical Society, and that perhaps we might care
to hear it before it was sent off: it was in a great measure
compiled from a French book, published by one of the Academies, and
rather dry in itself; but to which Mr. Dawson's attention had been
directed, after a tour he had made in England during the past year,
in which he had noticed small walled-up doors in unusual parts of
some old parish churches, and had been told that they had formerly
been appropriated to the use of some half-heathen race, who, before
the days of gipsies, held the same outcast pariah position in most of
the countries of western Europe. Mr. Dawson had been recommended to
the French book which he named, as containing the fullest and most
authentic account of this mysterious race, the Cagots. I did not
think I should like hearing this paper as much as a story; but, of
course, as he meant it kindly, we were bound to submit, and I found
it, on the whole, more interesting than I anticipated.

[At this point comes "An Accursed Race"--already released by Project
Gutenberg]