could find no better place to talk in than the church.

'In a moment--in a moment,' said the lawyer, signalling to him to be
quiet, as loftily as if chapel, hall, and sexton were his private
property.

It was one of those moments into which a good deal of talk is fitted, and
which seem somewhat of the longest to those who await its expiration.

The chapel was growing dark, and its stone and marble company of bygone
Wylders and Brandons were losing themselves in shadow. Part of the
periwig and cheek of Sir Marcus Brandon still glimmered whitish, as at a
little distance did also the dim marble face and arm of the young
Countess of Lydingworth, mourning these hundred and thirty years over her
dead baby. Sir William Wylder, in ruff, rosettes, and full dress of James
I.'s fashion, on his back, defunct, with children in cloaks kneeling at
head and foot, was hardly distinguishable; and the dusky crimson and
tarnished gold had gone out of view till morning. The learned Archbishop
Brandon, a cadet, who filled the see of York in his day, and was the only
unexceptionably godly personage of that long line, was praying, as usual,
at his desk--perhaps to the saints and Virgin, for I believe he was
before the Reformation--in beard and skull-cap, as was evident from the
black profile of head and uplifted hands, against the dim sky seen
through the chapel window. A dusky glow from the west still faintly
showed Hans Holbein's proud 'Elector,' in the Brandon window, fading,
with Death himself, and the dread inscription, 'Princeps induetur
maerore,' into utter darkness.

The ice once broken, Jos. Larkin urged his point with all sorts of
arguments, always placing the proposed transaction in the most plausible