“And thou last and guilty one! 
By thy lust of power undone,
Whom in death thy fellows shun! 

                                      I bid thee come!

“And thou fair one, who disdain’d
To keep the vows thy lips had feign’d;
And thy snowy garments stain’d! 

                                      I bid thee come!”

During this invocation, the glee of the assemblage ceased, and they looked around in hushed expectation of the result.  Slowly then did a long procession of monkish forms, robed in white, glide along the aisles, and gather round the altar.  The brass-covered stones within the presbytery were lifted up, as if they moved on hinges, and from the yawning graves beneath them arose solemn shapes, sixteen in number, each with mitre on head and crosier in hand, which likewise proceeded to the altar.  Then a loud cry was heard, and from a side chapel burst the monkish form, in mouldering garments, which Dorothy had seen enter the oratory, and which would have mingled with its brethren at the altar, but they waved it off menacingly.  Another piercing shriek followed, and a female shape, habited like a nun, and of surpassing loveliness, issued from the opposite chapel, and hovered near the fire.  Content with this proof of her power, Mother Chattox waved her hand, and the long shadowy train glided off as they came.  The ghostly abbots returned to their tombs, and the stones closed over them.  But the shades of Paslew and Isole de Heton still lingered.

The storm had wellnigh ceased, the thunder rolled hollowly at intervals, and a flash of lightning now and then licked the walls.  The weird crew had resumed their rites, when the door of the Lacy chapel flew open, and a tall female figure came forward.

Alizon doubted if she beheld aright.  Could that terrific woman in the strangely-fashioned robe of white, girt by a brazen zone graven with mystic characters, with a long glittering blade in her hand, infernal fury in her wildly-rolling orbs, the livid hue of death on her cheeks, and the red brand upon her brow—­could that fearful woman, with the black dishevelled tresses floating over her bare shoulders, and whose gestures were so imperious, be Mistress Nutter?  Mother no longer, if it indeed were she!  How came she there amid that weird assemblage?  Why did they so humbly salute her, and fall prostrate before her, kissing the hem of her garment?  Why did she stand proudly in the midst of them, and extend her hand, armed with the knife, over them?  Was she their sovereign mistress, that they bent so lowly at her coming, and rose so reverentially at her bidding?  Was this terrible woman, now seated oh a dilapidated tomb, and regarding the dark conclave with the eye of a queen who held their lives in her hands—­was she her mother?  Oh, no!—­no!—­it could not be!  It must be some fiend that usurped her likeness.