“Sirs, you are very imprudent,” he cried.  “You might have been locked up for the night, and I promise you that it is neither warm nor lively in this great building at three o’clock in the morning.  You also alarmed me, for I took you for ghosts.  I have seen them and believe in them, and I ought to know.  When I die I am persuaded that I, too, shall visit these haunts, whose pavement I have trod with staff and torch for fifty years.  I took you for ghosts, look you, for you seem harmless and peaceable, incapable of visiting these sacred aisles for sacrilegious purposes.”

We felt flattered.  The countenance is undoubtedly the index to the inner man, though it is not given to everyone to read the riddle.  It was consoling to hear that we did not exactly look like midnight assassins.

“I have never come across anyone like this before,” continued the verger.  “I was not in the least prepared for you.  What could have induced you to come in and contemplate all this darkness, and risk being locked up for the night?  If I had been at the other end when I discovered you, I should have fled, quite sure that you were ghosts.  I tell you that I have seen ghosts, but I do not care to converse with them; they rather frighten me.”

“Those fair penitents,” murmured H.C.  “They looked very graceful and picturesque; therefore they ought to be very pretty.  Could I go and see them, and make a sketch of them?  Do you think they would admit me?  Are they nuns?”

“They are not nuns, or they would not be here,” returned the old verger.  “But they do a great deal of good.  For my part I should say their confession was superfluous.  They can have no sins. I never go to confession.  What could I say?  My life is always the same.  I get up in the morning, open the church; lock it up at night, go to bed.  I eat my meals in peace, do harm to no one, am in charity with all men.  There is my life from January to December.  What have I to confess?”

“You are an extremely interesting character, but not so interesting as the fair penitents,” said H.C., bringing him back to the point from which he had wandered.  “Who are they, and can I go and call upon them?”

“I don’t believe they would admit you if you took them an order from the Pope,” returned the old verger emphatically.  “Without being nuns, they have taken a vow of celibacy, and live in partial retirement.  No man is ever admitted within their portals, excepting their Father Confessor, and he is old and ugly; in fact, the very image of a baboon.  A very good and pious man, all the same, is his reverence, and very learned.  These ladies teach the children of the poor; they nurse the sick; they have a small orphanage; and they are full of good works.”

“Why were they here to-night?”