 he could sing.
    »I cannot indeed,« replied the gentleman, smiling in his turn.
    »That's a pity,« said the owner of the good-humoured countenance. »Is there
nobody here who can sing a song to lighten the time?«
    The passengers, one and all, protested that they could not; that they wished
they could; that they couldn't remember the words of anything without the book;
and so forth.
    »Perhaps the lady would not object,« said the president with great respect,
and a merry twinkle in his eye. »Some little Italian thing out of the last opera
brought out in town, would be most acceptable, I am sure.«
    As the lady condescended to make no reply, but tossed her head
contemptuously, and murmured some further expression of surprise regarding the
absence of the green chariot, one or two voices urged upon the president
himself, the propriety of making an attempt for the general benefit.
    »I would if I could,« said he of the good-tempered face; »for I hold that in
this, as in all other cases where people who are strangers to each other are
thrown unexpectedly together, they should endeavour to render themselves as
pleasant, for the joint sake of the little community, as possible.«
    »I wish the maxim were more generally acted on, in all cases,« said the
grey-headed gentleman.
    »I'm glad to hear it,« returned the other. »Perhaps, as you can't sing
you'll tell us a story?«
    »Nay. I should ask you.«
    »After you, I will, with pleasure.«
    »Indeed!« said the grey-haired gentleman, smiling. »Well, let it be so. I
fear the turn of my thoughts is not calculated to lighten the time you must pass
here; but you have brought this upon yourselves, and shall judge. We were
speaking of York Minster just now. My story shall have some reference to it. Let
us call it.«
 

                           The Five Sisters of York.

After a murmur of approbation from the other passengers, during which the
fastidious lady drank a glass of punch unobserved, the grey-headed gentleman
thus went on:
    »A great many years ago - for the fifteenth century was scarce two years old
at the time, and King Henry the Fourth sat upon the throne of England - there
dwelt, in the ancient city of York, five maiden sisters, the subjects of my
tale.
    These five sisters were all
