* * * * *



THE USE OF THE RIFLE.

In no branch of manufacture has human ingenuity been taxed more vigorously, for the attainment of the highest possible point of perfection, than in that of rifled guns for the use of the troops, on whose capacity for the destruction of their opponents the throne of the tyrant or the liberty of the people may be dependent. Nations, companies, and individuals have expended years of time and millions of money in testing every conceivable contrivance which offered a hope of improvement in precision, force, facility of loading or firing, or any of the minute details which contribute to render the weapon more serviceable.

And yet, at this day, not only are the troops of different nations armed with rifles differing in size, weight, calibre, and degree of twist, requiring different instruction in their use, and shooting projectiles of widely different pattern, but scarcely any two gun-makers will be found to agree in all the details requisite to the construction of the most serviceable weapon. The reason for this diversity lies in the fact, that perfection in any one of its requirements can be attained only by the sacrifice of some portion at least of its other elements, and the point at which the balance should be fixed is a sliding scale covering as wide a range as that of the mental and physical differences of the men on whom the decision rests.

The objects to be attained are, precision and force at long ranges, facility of loading and firing, and such simplicity and strength in the general construction as to allow the least possible chance of derangement or mistake in the management, at the moment when such error might cost the owner his life. And in addition to these points it is required that the weight shall not exceed the amount which a man of the average strength needed for a soldier can manipulate and carry on the march without over-fatigue.

It will be seen that we have awarded the first place on the list of requisites to precision and force at long ranges; and we presume it is unnecessary to enter into any explanation of the obvious primary necessity for the attainment of those qualities. We find, however, that our progress towards perfection in this direction cannot proceed beyond a certain point, except at the cost of other qualities, which cannot be sacrificed with impunity.

Regarding it as a settled point that any recoil of the gun is just so much taken from the initial velocity of the ball, (and if any one doubts it, let him try the experiment of throwing a stone, and stepping backwards at the moment of propulsion,) it is obvious, that, for the attainment of the longest range, such a preponderance of weight in the gun over that of the projectile is necessary as to secure the least possible recoil, and this point seems to have been fixed by our best gun-makers at the ratio of five hundred to one, which would require a gun weighing nearly sixteen pounds to carry a half-ounce ball or shot. We use the word ball from habit, meaning, merely, the projectile, which will probably never again resume its spherical shape in actual service. We conceive the perfection of precision and range in rifle-practice to have been attained in the American target-ride, carrying a slug or cone of one ounce weight,—the gun itself weighing not less than thirty pounds,—and provided with a telescope-sight, and Clark's patent muzzle. At three-quarters of a mile this weapon may be said to be entirely trustworthy for an object of the size of a man, and to have force enough at that distance to disable three men. But it is obvious that such weight and such equipments as are required for it must render it utterly useless for ordinary field-service. It becomes, in fact, a species of light artillery, and as such we are firm in the conviction that it is destined to establish for itself a reputation which will render it henceforth a necessity in the composition of an army.

For troops of the line the weight of the gun should not exceed ten pounds. Now, if we reduce the rifle to that weight, and preserve the ratio of 1-500 as that of the ball, we reduce its range; for the momentum being, as every school-boy knows, in proportion to weight as well as velocity, a projectile which may be perfectly sure for two or three hundred yards flies wide of the mark at six hundred, and can hardly be found at a thousand. Here begins the operation of the sliding scale, in the necessity of sacrificing some degree of precision, in order to procure a weapon fulfilling other indispensable requisites for the soldier's use. In the English and our own service, the Enfield and Springfield rifled muskets have been fixed upon as presenting the nearest attainable approach to perfection in all the desirable elements of a military rifle.

It is out of the question to look for any such nice work with these tools as our best amateur riflemen are constantly in the habit of performing with the heavy thick-barrelled American rifle. The short Enfield is found to shoot better than the long, owing to the increased "spring" of the long, thin barrel of the latter; and the English themselves are becoming aware that they have carried the point of reducing the weight too far, and their best gun-makers are now insisting upon the fact which General Jacobs told them years ago,—that a "heavy conical ball cannot be used effectively from a long, thin barrel like that of the Enfield rifle, which is liable to great vibration."

The Enfield rifle, however, is a long step in advance of the old smooth-bored musket, concerning which a veteran British officer has declared his opinion that "a man might sit at his ease in an armchair all day long while another at two hundred yards' distance was blazing away at him with a brown Bess, on the sole condition that he should, on his honor, aim exactly at him at every shot." Per contra to this, may be stated the fact, mentioned by Lord Raglan in his despatches, that at Balaklava a Russian battery of two guns was silenced by the skill in rifle-shooting of a single officer, (Lieutenant Godfrey,) who, approaching under cover of a ravine within six hundred yards, and having his men hand him their Enfield rifles in turn, actually picked off the artillerymen, one after another, till there were not enough left to serve the guns, and this in spite of the storm of shot and shell which they poured around him in reply, he being under no necessity of exposing a larger target than his head and shoulders for them to aim at.

A trustworthy breech-loading rifle has long been a desideratum with military men; but nothing has yet been produced which offers sufficient advantages, or seems sufficiently free from objections, to authorize its introduction as anything more than an experiment. In fact, the special object of a breech-loading gun—that of enabling its owner to deliver his fire with greater rapidity—is found in actual service to be an objection: the soldier being tempted, in the excitement of battle, to load and fire as rapidly as possible, and thus to waste the greater portion of his shots, whereas the primary object at such a time is to induce the deliberation which alone can insure efficiency. It must be obvious to any one who reflects upon the matter, that in reality the whole question of efficiency in battle must hinge upon the one point of precision of fire. It is well known that in actual service not more than one shot in six hundred takes effect, and, except for the moral effect of the roar of the musketry and the whistling of the balls, the remaining five hundred and ninety-nine might better have been kept in the cartridge-boxes. Upon raw troops, for the most part, this moral effect is sufficient to decide the question, with the addition of a comparatively small number of killed and wounded. But veteran troops are not disturbed by it. They know that a ball which misses by a quarter of an inch is as harmless as if it had never been shot, and they very soon learn to disregard the whistling. When they encounter such a fire, however, as the English met at Bunker's Hill and at New Orleans,—when the shots which miss are the exceptions, and those which hit, the rule, no amount of discipline or courage can avail. Disciplined soldiers are no more willing to be shot than raw levies; but having learned by experience that the danger in an ordinary action is very trifling in comparison with its appearance to the imagination of a recruit, they face it with a determination which to him is inconceivable. Make the apparent danger real, as in the cases we have cited, and veterans become as powerless as the merest tyros. With the stimulus of the present demand, it is probable that Yankee ingenuity will erelong produce some kind of rifle so far superior to anything yet known as to supersede all others; and indeed we have little doubt that such would already have been the case, but for the fact that comparatively few of our most ingenious mechanics are also expert riflemen, and none but a first-rate shot can thoroughly appreciate all the requirements of the weapon.

Since the Crimean War, the Governments of Europe seem to have become awakened to the fact, that, however important and desirable it may be to secure the best possible implements for the soldier's use, it is infinitely more so that he should know how to use them. In the hands of a marksman the rifle is an efficient weapon at half a mile's distance; but to expect on that account that it will do any more execution in the hands of one who is not familiar with it than a smooth-bored musket is as idle as it would be to hope that a person unacquainted with the violin could give us better music from a Cremona than he could from a corn-stalk fiddle.

For years past the European powers have been training men to the use of the rifle. Hundreds of thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen are at this moment as familiar with the practical application of its powers as if their subsistence had been dependent upon its use. Government and people have perceived that the improvements in small-arms have wrought such a revolution in the art of war as to revive the necessity which existed in the days of archery, of making every man a marksman, and in England the old archery sports of prize-shooting and unremitting private practice have been renewed, with the substitution of the rifle for the bow; and besides the regular standing army, England is now guarded by two hundred thousand volunteers, every one of whom is a good rifleman, and who have all been subjected to such an amount of drilling as would enable them speedily to accomplish themselves in the art of united action. The inciting cause of this great national movement was the apprehension of a French invasion. Whether there was any ground for such apprehension, or whether the preparations which were made in consequence have served to avert the danger, are questions which are irrelevant to our present object, which lies nearer home.

It needs no argument at this moment to prove the possibility that we may become engaged in a foreign war, before we have done with the one we have on our hands at home; but without troubling ourselves with apprehensions of possible contingencies, have we not sufficient motive in the condition of affairs at home to render it an imperative duty to strengthen ourselves by every available means?

We have been so long unused to anything like warlike preparations that we find it difficult to arouse ourselves to a realization of the fact that every able-bodied man is liable to be called upon to render active service for his country; and when a war is raging within our borders, of whose termination the only thing that can be predicted with certainty is that it can be reached only through fearful suffering and destruction of life and property, is it not incumbent on every man to prepare himself by whatever means are within his reach to render his services efficient? That the affirmative would be the popular answer is sufficiently proved by a recurrence to the zeal with which we organized drill-clubs and practised military tactics in the early stages of the war. It was not long before the zeal died away. It soon proved a bore to people who could not help perceiving, that, however perfect they might become in the manual exercise, their efficiency as soldiers could hardly amount to much, when most of them had never fired a gun in their lives. And so the drill-room was quietly abandoned,—the conduct of the war was left to the Government and the army, while we looked on as mere spectators,—and the future was left to take care of itself.

We do not mourn greatly at the decay of the drill-clubs, which, in the form they assumed, were likely to be of little practical benefit; but we do most sincerely regret the decay of the spirit which led to their formation, for it was founded on the universal conviction of the fact, which exists at this moment in still stronger force, that every man ought to make himself ready for the possible contingency of his services being demanded in the field.

No man can foretell the chances and changes which are before us; but he must be ignorant indeed of human nature and human history, who does not perceive, that, even if our success in the present contest is all that we can hope, there are issues involved in the weighty questions which must ensue before the storm subsides, which may render the preservation of our liberties dependent upon our ability to resist the attempts of factions or of ambitious and unprincipled military leaders to overturn them. We have had evidence enough, since the struggle began, (if any one doubted it before,) that selfishness and ambition are not unrepresented among us; and if such spirits are abroad, they are working for evil, and we are worse than foolish to trust to virtue and patriotism to encounter them unarmed. Do we not owe it to that fatal error, that we are in our present condition? Were not ambition and lust of power secretly strengthening their hands for years, in the hope to spring upon us unawares, and bind us fast before we could prepare for resistance?—and can we again suffer ourselves to be caught in the same trap?

The question implies its own answer, and the practical reply should be the immediate and universal instruction of the people in the use of arms; and to this end the readiest and most efficient means lie in the encouragement of rifle-practice, by the organization of rifle-clubs, the institution of shooting-matches for prizes, and the inculcation by all available methods of a taste for the acquirement of an art which constitutes the vital spirit of military efficiency. Wherever clubs can be formed, a course of drilling should be entered upon in connection with target-practice; but thousands of able-bodied men throughout the country may be unable to unite with clubs or attend the drills, who may yet perfect themselves in target-shooting, and the prizes at shooting-matches should be open to all competitors and all weapons.

The volume of instructions for the Hythe School, issued from the Horse-Guards, contains the following preliminary remarks:—"The rifle is placed in the soldier's hands for the destruction of his enemy; his own safety depends upon his efficient use of it: it cannot, therefore, be too strongly inculcated, that every man who has no defect in his eyes may be made a good shot, and that no degree of perfection he may have attained in the other parts of his drill can upon service remedy any want of proficiency in this; in fact, all his other instructions in marching and manoeuvring can do no more than place him in the best possible situation for using his weapon with effect."

To the assertion that "every man who has no defect in his eyes may be made a good shot," we beg leave to object, or at least to accept it with allowances. That every one may attain sufficient skill for ordinary military service, by which we mean according to modern requirements, we have no manner of doubt; but the experience of the great shooting-match at Wimbledon in July last proves conclusively the existence of very wide differences in the powers of men who had enjoyed equal opportunities of perfecting themselves; and we are confident that our best riflemen will sooner indorse the verdict of Frank Forester, who, after a fair statement of the obstacles to the attainment of perfection, concludes with the remark,—"It is impossible, therefore, for one-half at least, if not more, of mankind to become even fair rifle-shots, with any possible amount of practice; but to all men who have good eyes, iron nerves, sufficient physical strength, and phlegmatic tempers, it is a certainty beyond calculation that they can become first-rate rifle-shots with sufficient practice."[A]

[Footnote A: Complete Manual for Young Sportsmen.]

We not only recognize this difference in the powers of different individuals, but we insist upon the importance of observing it in the military organization of the rifle corps. The men who prove by their work that they possess the skill which is the result of such a combination of moral and physical characteristics as are here enumerated should be selected for special duty, and armed with the most efficient weapons that can be procured, which, even at four times the cost of ordinary infantry muskets, would prove in the end the better economy, by rendering needless the enormous waste of ammunition which seems inseparable from the use of ordinary arms. The sharp-shooters thus selected should be armed in part with the best rifles of ordinary construction and weight, (and we are strongly inclined to believe, if allowed their own choice, they would select the common American hunting-rifle,) and a portion with the best telescope-rifles of the kind we have heretofore described. We are well aware, that, till recently, the introduction of these guns into the service has been scouted at by military men, and the experiment of sending a company of men provided with them and familiar with their use from this State was met with ridicule, which, however, has been changed to admiration by the triumphant manner in which they have vindicated the most sanguine hopes of those who were instrumental in procuring their introduction.

A letter from a member of the company says of them,—"The telescope-rifles more than equalled our expectations. They do good service at a mile, and are certain death at half a mile." At Edwards's Ferry, on the 22d of October, seventy men of this company repelled a charge of fifteen hundred of the enemy and drove them from the field, with the loss of more than one hundred killed, while not one of their own men received a scratch. They lay upon the ground behind a fence, resting their guns upon the lower rail, and the enemy came in sight half a mile distant and started towards them at double-quick, loading and firing as they ran; but before they had traversed half the distance, they had learned that the whistle of every bullet was the death-knell of one, and in many instances of more than one of their number, and coming to a slight ravine, the temptation of its shelter from so fearful a storm proved irresistible, and, turning up course, they fled in dismay, leaving their dead upon the ground in windrows. Three standard-bearers in succession fell before the fatal aim of the same rifle, and no man dared repeat the suicidal act of again displaying that ensign. We have seen a letter from an officer high in command who witnessed that action, and, after describing it, he remarks,—"There is more chance of credit to your State in the new gun and men than in twenty drilled regiments."

But the history of that skirmish proves the capacity of the weapon in question for the performance of more than ought ever to be asked of it. Had the troops who attempted the charge been thoroughly disciplined and accustomed to the work, they could not have been checked by so small a number, and in five minutes more the little handful of riflemen would have been riddled with bayonets. On the other hand, nothing but the confidence inspired by the consciousness of the power they wielded could have enabled such a handful to hold their ground as they did in the face of such overwhelming odds. Two companies of infantry in their rear, who were intended as a support, fired one volley and then fled.

In a close conflict so unwieldy a weapon as the telescope-rifle is of course useless, and its owner must depend upon his side-arms for defence. The same is true of artillery, and, as we said before, these riflemen are to be considered and used in service as light artillery,—requiring a sufficient support to enable them to withdraw from close action, but operating with deadly effect upon individual enemies at a distance at which cannon are serviceable only against masses, and, for the most part, require a series of trials to get the range, which may be constantly shifting. The telescope-rifle is a field-piece possessing such precision and range as no other weapon can boast, and provided with an instrument which reduces the art of aiming to a point of mathematical certainty,—and all within such a compass of size and weight that every man of a company can manage one with nearly the rapidity and with ten times the efficiency of an ordinary musket. We submit the question, whether we can afford to dispense with such advantages,—or rather, whether we are not bound to develop them to their fullest extent, by the adoption and adaptation to field-service of the weapon which combines them? It is obvious that a corps armed with such a weapon would require a peculiar drill, and their sphere of usefulness would necessarily be limited by circumstances which would not affect ordinary infantry; but common sense would readily dictate the positions of attack or defence in which their peculiar powers would render the best service, and military science would suggest the most efficient manner of directing their operations. Such a force, however, would necessarily form but a small portion of any army; and we have dwelt upon the subject solely from the conviction that its importance is too great to allow it to be neglected, while it is yet too little known to be appreciated as it deserves.

We turn now to the ordinary rifle-practice, which has come of late years to be considered in Europe almost as the one thing needful for the soldier, while with us it has been gradually sinking into disuse for a quarter of a century. When called upon to send an army into the field, we find that more than half of its members have never fired a gun, and even of those who have, not one in a hundred has had any instruction beyond what he has been able to pick up for himself, while popping at robins and squirrels with a ten-dollar Birmingham shot-gun; and every account we receive of a skirmish with the enemy elicits exclamations of astonishment that so few are hurt on either side. It may relieve in some degree the prevalent dread of fire-arms (which is a primary cause of this general ignorance of their use) to discover that it requires no small amount of skill to hurt anybody with them; and when the fact comes to be equally appreciated, that ignorance lies at the bottom of all the unintended mischief that is done with them, it is probable that proper instruction in their use will be considered, as it ought, a necessary part of a boy's education. It had been better for us, if this matter had been sooner attended to. Let us lose no time now.

Reader! are you a man, having the use of your limbs and eyes, and do you know how to put a ball into a rifle and bring it out again with a true aim? If not, it is time you were learning. Provide yourself with a rifle and equipments, and find some one to give you the first lessons in their use, and then practise daily at target-shooting. Do not excuse yourself with the plea that you have no intention to enter the service. If the work of preparation is left only to those who mean to become soldiers, it will not be done; but if every man proves his appreciation of its importance by taking an active interest in its promotion, the right men for soldiers will be forthcoming when they are needed, and the most important element of their military education will have been acquired; and it is not impossible that the day may come when you yourself will feel that the power you have thus obtained is worth more to you than all you learned in college. Are you too old and infirm for such service, or are you a woman, and have you the means of equipping another who is unable to do it for himself? If so, it will not be hard to find an able-bodied young man who will gladly take charge of a rifle, on the condition that he is to be its owner at the end of six months, if he can then place ten successive shots in a circle of a foot in diameter at two hundred yards.

"A word to the wise is enough." The word has been uttered in trumpet-tones from the battle-fields of the South. Let us prove that we are wise, by acting at once upon its suggestions.

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AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE PILGRIMAGE.

The morning sun rose clear and lovely on the old red rocks of Sorrento, and danced in a thousand golden scales and ripples on the wide Mediterranean. The shadows of the gorge were pierced by long golden shafts of light, here falling on some moist bed of crimson cyclamen, there shining through a waving tuft of gladiolus, or making the abundant yellow fringes of the broom more vivid in their brightness. The velvet-mossy old bridge, in the far shadows at the bottom, was lit up by a chance beam, and seemed as if it might be something belonging to fairy-land.

There had been a bustle and stir betimes in the little dove-cot, for to-morrow the inmates were to leave it for a long, adventurous journey.

To old Elsie, the journey back to Rome, the city of her former days of prosperity, the place which had witnessed her ambitious hopes, her disgrace and downfall, was full of painful ideas. There arose to her memory, like a picture, those princely halls, with their slippery, cold mosaic floors, their long galleries of statues and paintings, their enchanting gardens, musical with the voice of mossy fountains, fragrant with the breath of roses and jessamines, where the mother of Agnes had spent the hours of her youth and beauty. She seemed to see her flitting hither and thither down the stately ilex-avenues, like some gay singing-bird, to whom were given gilded cages and a constant round of caresses and sweets, or like the flowers in the parterres, which lived and died only as the graceful accessories of the grandeur of an old princely family.

She compared, mentally, the shaded and secluded life which Agnes had led with the specious and fatal brilliancy which had been the lot of her mother,—her simple peasant garb with those remembered visions of jewelry and silk and embroideries with which the partial patronage of the Duchess or the ephemeral passion of her son had decked out the poor Isella; and then came swelling at her heart a tumultuous thought, one which she had repressed and kept down for years with all the force of pride and hatred. Agnes, peasant-girl though she seemed, had yet the blood of that proud old family in her veins; the marriage had been a true one; she herself had witnessed it.

"Yes, indeed," she said to herself, "were justice done, she would now be a princess,—a fit mate for the nobles of the land; and here I ask no more than to mate her to an honest smith,—I that have seen a prince kneel to kiss her mother's hand,—yes, he did,—entreat her on his knees to be his wife,—I saw it. But then, what came of it? Was there ever one of these nobles that kept oath or promise to us of the people, or that cared for us longer than the few moments we could serve his pleasure? Old Elsie, you have done wisely! keep your dove out of the eagle's nest: it is foul with the blood of poor innocents whom he has torn to pieces in his cruel pride!"

These thoughts swelled in silence in the mind of Elsie, while she was busy sorting and arranging her household stores, and making those thousand-and-one preparations known to every householder, whether of much or little, who meditates a long journey.

To Agnes she seemed more than ever severe and hard; yet probably there never was a time when every pulse of her heart was beating more warmly for the child, and every thought of the future was more entirely regulated with reference to her welfare. It is no sinecure to have the entire devotion of a strong, enterprising, self-willed friend, as Agnes had all her life found. One cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, and the affection of thorny and thistly natures has often as sharp an acid and as long prickers as wild gooseberries,—yet it is their best, and must be so accepted.

Agnes tried several times to offer her help to her grandmother, but was refused so roughly that she dared not offer again, and therefore went to her favorite station by the parapet in the garden, whence she could look up and down the gorge, and through the arches of the old mossy Roman bridge that spanned it far down by the city-wall. All these things had become dear to her by years of familiar silent converse. The little garden, with its old sculptured basin, and the ever-lulling dash of falling water,—the tremulous draperies of maiden's-hair, always beaded with shining drops,—the old shrine, with its picture, its lamp, and flower-vase,—the tall, dusky orange-trees, so full of blossoms and fruit, so smooth and shining in their healthy bark,—all seemed to her as so many dear old friends whom she was about to leave, perhaps forever.

What this pilgrimage would be like, she scarcely knew: days and weeks of wandering,—over mountain-passes,—in deep, solitary valleys,—as years ago, when her grandmother brought her, a little child, from Rome.

In the last few weeks, Agnes seemed to herself to have become wholly another being. Silently, insensibly, her feet had crossed the enchanted river that divides childhood from womanhood, and all the sweet ignorant joys of that first early paradise lay behind her. Up to this time her life had seemed to her a charming dream, full of blessed visions and images: legends of saints, and hymns, and prayers had blended with flower-gatherings in the gorge, and light daily toils.

Now, a new, strange life had been born within her,—a life full of passions, contradictions, and conflicts. A love had sprung up in her heart, strange and wonderful, for one who till within these few weeks had been entirely unknown to her, who had never toiled for, or housed, or clothed, or cared for her as her grandmother had, and yet whom a few short interviews, a few looks, a few words, had made to seem nearer and dearer than the old, tried friends of her childhood. In vain she confessed it as a sin,—in vain she strove against it; it came back to her in every hymn, in every prayer. Then she would press the sharp cross to her breast, till a thousand stings of pain would send the blood in momentary rushes to her pale cheek, and cause her delicate lips to contract with an expression of stern endurance, and pray that by any penance and anguish she might secure his salvation.

To save one such glorious soul, she said to herself, was work enough for one little life. She was willing to spend it all in endurance, unseen by him, unknown to him, so that at last he should be received into that Paradise which her ardent imagination conceived so vividly. Surely, there she should meet him, radiant as the angel of her dream; and then she would tell him that it was all for his sake that she had refused to listen to him here. And these sinful longings to see him once more, these involuntary reachings of her soul after an earthly companionship, she should find strength to overcome in this pilgrimage. She should go to Rome,—the very city where the blessed Paul poured out his blood for the Lord Jesus,—where Peter fed the flock, till his time, too, came to follow his Lord in the way of the cross. She should even come near to her blessed Redeemer; she should go up, on her knees, those very steps to Pilate's hall where He stood bleeding, crowned with thorns,—His blood, perhaps, dropping on the very stones. Ah, could any mortal love distract her there? Should she not there find her soul made free of every earthly thrall to love her Lord alone,—as she had loved Him in the artless and ignorant days of her childhood,—but better, a thousand times?

"Good morning to you, pretty dove!" said a voice from without the garden-wall; and Agnes, roused from her reverie, saw old Jocunda.

"I came down to help you off," she said, as she came into the little garden. "Why, my dear little saint! you are looking white as a sheet, and with those tears! What's it all for, baby?"

"Ah, Jocunda! grandmamma is angry with me all the time now. I wish I could go once more to the Convent and see my dear Mother Theresa. She is angry, if I but name it; and yet she will not let me do anything here to help her, and so I don't know what to do."

"Well, at any rate, don't cry, pretty one! Your grandmamma is worked with hard thoughts. We old folks are twisted and crabbed and full of knots with disappointment and trouble, like the mulberry-trees that they keep for vines to run on. But I'll speak to her; I know her ways; she shall let you go; I'll bring her round."

"So-ho, sister!" said the old soul, hobbling to the door, and looking in at Elsie, who was sitting flat on the stone floor of her cottage, sorting a quantity of flax that lay around her. The severe Roman profile was thrown out by the deep shadows of the interior,—and the piercing black eyes, the silver-white hair, and the strong, compressed lines of the mouth, as she worked, and struggled with the ghosts of her former life, made her look like no unapt personification of one of the Fates reviewing her flax before she commenced the spinning of some new web of destiny.

"Good morning to you, sister!" said Jocunda. "I heard you were off tomorrow, and I came to see what I could do to help you."

"There's nothing to be done for me, but to kill me," said Elsie. "I am weary of living."

"Oh, never say that! Shake the dice again, my old man used to say,—God rest his soul! Please Saint Agnes, you'll have a brave pilgrimage."

"Saint Agnes be hanged!" said Elsie, gruffly. "I'm out with her. It was she put all these notions into my girl's head. Because she didn't get married herself, she don't want any one else to. She has no consideration. I've done with her: I told her so this morning. The candles I've burned and the prayers I've gone through with, that she might prosper me in this one thing! and it's all gone against me. She's a baggage, and shall never see another penny of mine,—that's flat!"

Such vituperation of saints and sacred images may be heard to this day in Italy, and is a common feature of idol-worship in all lands; for, however the invocation of the saints could be vitalized in the hearts of the few spiritual, there is no doubt that in the mass of the common people it had all the well-defined symptoms of the grossest idolatry, among which fits of passionate irreverence are one. That feeling, which tempts the enlightened Christian in sore disappointment and vexation to rise in rebellion against a wise Providence, in the childish twilight of uncultured natures finds its full expression unawed by reverence or fear.

"Oh, hush, now!" said Jocunda. "What is the use of making her angry just as you are going to Rome, where she has the most power? All sorts of ill luck will befall you. Make up with her before you start, or you may get the fever in the marshes and die, and then who will take care of poor Agnes?"

"Let Saint Agnes look after her; the girl loves her better than she does me or anybody else," said Elsie. "If she cared anything about me, she'd marry and settle down, as I want her to."

"Oh, there you are wrong," said Jocunda. "Marrying is like your dinner: one is not always in stomach for it, and one's meat is another's poison. Now who knows but this pilgrimage may be the very thing to bring the girl round? I've seen people cured of too much religion by going to Rome. You know things a'n't there as our little saint fancies. Why, between you and me, the priests themselves have their jokes on those who come so far to so little purpose. More shame for 'em, say I, too; but we common people mustn't look into such things too closely. Now take it cheerfully, and you'll see the girl will come back tired of tramping and able to settle down in a good home with a likely husband. I have a brother in Naples who is turning a pretty penny in the fisheries; I will give you directions to find him; his wife is a wholesome Christian woman; and if the little one be tired by the time you get there, you might do worse than stop two or three days with them. It's a brave city; seems made to have a good time in. Come, you let her just run up to the Convent to bid goodbye to the Mother Theresa and the sisters."

"I don't care where she goes," said Elsie, ungraciously.

"There, now!" said Jocunda, coming out,—"Agnes, your grandmother bids you go to the Convent to say good-bye to the sisters; so run along, there's a little dear. The Mother Theresa talks of nothing else but you since she heard that you meditated this; and she has broken in two her own piece of the True Cross which she's carried in the gold and pearl reliquary that the Queen sent her, and means to give it to you. One doesn't halve such gifts, without one's whole heart goes with them."

"Dear mother!" said Agnes, her eyes filling with tears. "I will take her some flowers and oranges for the last time. Do you know, Jocunda, I feel that I never shall come back here to this dear little home where I have been so happy?—everything sounds so mournful and looks so mournful!—I love everything here so much!"

"Oh, dear child, never give in to such fancies, but pluck up heart. You will be sure to have luck, wherever you go,—especially since the mother will give you that holy relic. I myself had a piece of Saint John Baptist's thumb-nail sewed up in a leather bag, which I wore day and night all the years I was tramping up and down with my old man; but when he died, I had it buried with him to ease his soul. For you see, dear, he was a trooper, and led such a rackety, up-and-down life, that I doubt but his confessions were but slipshod, and he needed all the help be could get, poor old soul! It's a comfort to think he has it."

"Ah, Jocunda, seems to me it were better to trust to the free love of our dear Lord who died for us, and pray to Him, without ceasing, for his soul."

"Like enough, dearie; but then, one can't he too sure, you know. And there isn't the least doubt in my mind that that was a true relic, for I got it in the sack of the city of Volterra, out of the private cabinet of a noble lady, with a lot of jewels and other matters that made quite a little purse for us. Ah, that was a time, when that city was sacked! It was hell upon earth for three days, and all our men acted like devils incarnate; but then they always will in such cases. But go your ways now, dearie, and I'll stay with your grandmamma; for, please God, you must be up and away with the sun tomorrow."

Agnes hastily arranged a little basket of fruit and flowers, and took her way down through the gorge, under the Roman bridge, through an orange-orchard, and finally came out upon the sea-shore, and so along the sands below the cliffs on which the old town of Sorrento is situated.

So cheating and inconsistent is the human heart, especially in the feminine subject, that she had more than once occasion to chide herself for the thrill with which she remembered passing the Cavalier once in this orange-garden, and the sort of vague hope which she detected that somewhere along this road he might appear again.

"How perfectly wicked and depraved I must be," she said to herself, "to find any pleasure in such a thought of one I should pray never to meet again!"

And so the little soul went on condemning herself in those exaggerated terms which the religious vocabulary of conventual life furnished ready-made for the use of penitents of every degree, till by the time she arrived at the Convent she could scarcely have been more oppressed with a sense of sin, if she had murdered her grandmother and eloped with the Cavalier.

On her arrival in the Convent court, the peaceful and dreamy stillness contrasted strangely with the gorgeous brightness of the day outside. The splendid sunshine, the sparkling sea, the songs of the boatmen, the brisk passage of gliding sails, the bright hues of the flowers that garlanded the rocks, all seemed as if the earth had been arrayed for some gala-day; but the moment she had passed the portal, the silent, mossy court, with its pale marble nymph, its lull of falling water, its turf snow-dropt with daisies and fragrant with blue and white violets, and the surrounding cloistered walks, with their pictured figures of pious history, all came with a sad and soothing influence on her nerves.

The nuns, who had heard the news of the projected pilgrimage, and regarded it as the commencement of that saintly career which they had always predicted for her, crowded around her, kissing her hands and her robe, and entreating her prayers at different shrines of especial sanctity that she might visit.

The Mother Theresa took her to her cell, and there hung round her neck, by a golden chain, the relic which she designed for her, and of whose genuineness she appeared to possess no manner of doubt.

"But how pale you are, my sweet child!" she said. "What has happened to alter you so much? Your cheeks look so thin, and there are deep, dark circles round your eyes."

"Ah, my mother, it is because of my sins."

"Your sins, dear little one! What sins can you be guilty of?"

"Ah, my dear mother, I have been false to my Lord, and let the love of an earthly creature into my heart."

"What can you mean?" said the mother.

"Alas, dear mother, the cavalier who sent that ring!" said Agnes, covering her face with her hands.

Now the Mother Theresa had never left the walls of that convent since she was ten years old,—had seen no men except her father and uncle, who once or twice made her a short call, and an old hunch-back who took care of their garden, safe in his armor of deformity. Her ideas on the subject of masculine attractions were, therefore, as vague as might be the conceptions of the eyeless fishes in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky with regard to the fruits and flowers above-ground. All that portion of her womanly nature which might have throbbed lay in a dead calm. Still there was a faint flutter of curiosity, as she pressed Agnes to tell her story, which she did with many pauses and sobs and blushes.

"And is he so very handsome, my little heart?" she said, after listening. "What makes you love him so much in so little time?"

"Yes,—he is beautiful as an angel."

"I never saw a young man, really," said the Mother Theresa. "Uncle Angelo was lame, and had gray hair; and papa was very fat, and had a red face. Perhaps he looks like our picture of Saint Sebastian;—I have often thought that I might be in danger of loving a young man that looked like him."

"Oh, he is more beautiful than that picture or any picture!" said Agnes, fervently; "and, mother, though he is excommunicated, I can't help feeling that he is as good as he is beautiful. My uncle had strong hopes that he should restore him to the True Church; and to pray for his soul I am going on this pilgrimage. Father Francesco says, if I will tear away and overcome this love, I shall gain so much merit that my prayers will have power to save his soul. Promise me, dear mother, that you and all the sisters will help me with your prayers;—help me to work out this great salvation, and then I shall be so glad to come back here and spend all my life in prayer!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS.

And so on a bright spring morning our pilgrims started. Whoever has traversed the road from Sorrento to Naples, that wonderful path along the high, rocky shores of the Mediterranean, must remember it only as a wild dream of enchantment. On one side lies the sea, shimmering in bands of blue, purple, and green to the swaying of gentle winds, exhibiting those magical shiftings and changes of color peculiar to these waves. Near the land its waters are of pale, transparent emerald, while farther out they deepen into blue and thence into a violet-purple, which again, towards the horizon-line, fades into misty pearl-color. The shores rise above the sea in wild, bold precipices, grottoed into fantastic caverns by the action of the waves, and presenting every moment some new variety of outline. As the path of the traveller winds round promontories whose mountain-heights are capped by white villages and silvery with olive-groves, he catches the enchanting sea-view, now at this point, and now at another, with Naples glimmering through the mists in the distance, and the purple sides of Vesuvius ever changing with streaks and veins of cloud-shadows, while silver vapors crown the summit. Above the road the steep hills seem piled up to the sky,—every spot terraced, and cultivated with some form of vegetable wealth, and the wild, untamable rocks garlanded over with golden broom, crimson gillyflowers, and a thousand other bright adornments. The road lies through villages whose gardens and orange-orchards fill the air with, sweet scents, and whose rose-hedges sometimes pour a perfect cascade of bloom and fragrance over the walls.

Our travellers started in the dewy freshness of one of those gorgeous days which seem to cast an illuminating charm over everything. Even old Elsie's stern features relaxed somewhat under the balmy influences of sun and sky, and Agnes's young, pale face was lit up with a brighter color than for many a day before. Their pilgrimage through this beautiful country had few incidents. They walked in the earlier and latter parts of the day, reposing a few hours at noon near some fountain or shrine by the wayside,—often experiencing the kindly veneration of the simple peasantry, who cheerfully offered them refreshments, and begged their prayers at the holy places whither they were going.

In a few days they reached Naples, where they made a little stop with the hospitable family to whom Jocunda had recommended them. From Naples their path lay through the Pontine Marshes; and though the malaria makes this region a word of fear, yet it is no less one of strange, soft, enchanting beauty. A wide, sea-like expanse, clothed with an abundance of soft, rich grass, painted with golden bands and streaks of bright yellow flowers, stretches away to a purple curtain of mountains, whose romantic outline rises constantly in a thousand new forms of beauty. The upland at the foot of these mountains is beautifully diversified with tufts of trees, and the contrast of the purple softness of the distant hills with the dazzling gold and emerald of the wide meadow-tracts they inclose is a striking feature in the landscape. Droves of silver-haired oxen, with their great, dreamy, dark eyes and polished black horns, were tranquilly feeding knee-deep in the lush, juicy grass, and herds of buffaloes, uncouth, but harmless, might be seen pasturing or reposing in the distance. On either side of the way were waving tracts of yellow fleur-de-lis, and beds of arum, with its arrowy leaves and white blossoms. It was a wild luxuriance of growth, a dreamy stillness of solitude, so lovely that one could scarce remember that it was deadly.

Elsie was so impressed with the fear of the malaria, that she trafficked with an honest peasant, who had been hired to take back to Rome the horses which had been used to convey part of the suite of a nobleman travelling to Naples, to give them a quicker passage across than they could have made on foot. It is true that this was quite contrary to the wishes of Agnes, who felt that the journey ought to be performed in the most toilsome and self-renouncing way, and that they should trust solely to prayer and spiritual protection to ward off the pestilential exhalations.

In vain she quoted the Psalm, "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day," and adduced cases of saints who had walked unhurt through all sorts of dangers.

"There's no use talking, child," said Elsie. "I'm older than you, and have seen more of real men and women; and whatever they did in old times, I know that nowadays the saints don't help those that don't take care of themselves; and the long and the short of it is, we must ride across those marshes, and get out of them as quick as possible, or we shall get into Paradise quicker than we want to."

In common with many other professing Christians, Elsie felt that going to Paradise was the very dismallest of alternatives,—a thing to be staved off as long as possible.

After many days of journeying, the travellers, somewhat weary and foot-sore, found themselves in a sombre and lonely dell of the mountains, about an hour before the going down of the sun. The slanting yellow beams turned to silvery brightness the ashy foliage of the gnarled old olives, which gaunt and weird clung with their great, knotty, straggling roots to the rocky mountain-sides. Before them, the path, stony, steep, and winding, was rising upward and still upward, and no shelter for the night appeared, except in a distant mountaintown, which, perched airily as an eagle's nest on its hazy height, reflected from the dome of its church and its half-ruined old feudal tower, the golden light of sunset. A drowsy-toned bell was ringing out the Ave Maria over the wide purple solitude of mountains, whose varying outlines were rising around.

"You are tired, my little heart," said old Elsie to Agnes, who had drooped during a longer walk than usual.

"No, grandmamma," said Agnes, sinking on her knees to repeat her evening prayer, which she did, covering her face with her hands.

Old Elsie kneeled too; but, as she was praying,—being a thrifty old body in the use of her time,—she cast an eye up the steep mountain-path and calculated the distance of the little airy village. Just at that moment she saw two or three horsemen, who appeared to be stealthily observing them from behind the shadow of some large rocks.

When their devotions were finished, she hurried on her grandchild, saying,—

"Come, dearie! it must be we shall find a shelter soon."

The horsemen now rode up behind them.

"Good evening, mother!" said one of them, speaking from under the shadow of a deeply slouched hat.

Elsie made no reply, but hurried forward.

"Good evening, pretty maid!" he said again, riding still nearer.

"Go your ways in the name of God," said Elsie. "We are pilgrims, going for our souls to Rome; and whoever hinders us will have the saints to deal with."

"Who talks of hindering you, mother?" responded the other. "On the contrary, we come for the express purpose of helping you along."

"We want none of your help," said Elsie, gruffly.

"See, now, how foolish you are!" said the horseman. "Don't you see that that town is a good seven miles off, and not a bit of bed or supper to be had till you get there, and the sun will be down soon? So mount up behind me, and here is a horse for the little one."

In fact, the horsemen at this moment opening disclosed to view a palfrey with a lady's saddle, richly caparisoned, as if for a person of condition. With a sudden movement, two of the men dismounted, confronted the travellers, and the one who had acted as spokesman, approaching Agnes, said, in a tone somewhat imperative,—

"Come, young lady, it is our master's will that your poor little feet should have some rest."

And before Agnes could remonstrate, he raised her into the saddle as easily as if she had been a puff of thistle-down, and then turning to Elsie, he said,—

"For you, good mother, if you wish to keep up, you must e'en be content with a seat behind me."

"Who are you? and how dare you?" said Elsie, indignantly.

"Good mother," said the man, "you see God's will is that you should submit, because we are four to you two, and there are fifty more within call. So get up without more words, and I swear by the Holy Virgin no harm shall be done you."

Elsie looked and saw Agnes already some distance before her, the bridle of her palfrey being held by one of the horsemen, who rode by her side and seemed to look after her carefully; and so, without more ado, she accepted the services of the man, and, placing her foot on the toe of his riding-boot, mounted to the crupper behind him.

"That is right," said he. "Now hold on to me lustily, and be not afraid."

So saying, the whole troop began winding as rapidly as possible up the steep, rocky path to the mountain-town.

Notwithstanding the surprise and alarm of this most unexpected adventure, Agnes, who had been at the very point of exhaustion from fatigue, could not but feel the sensation of relief and repose which the seat in an easy saddle gave her. The mountain air, as they arose, breathed fresh and cold on her brow, and a prospect of such wondrous beauty unrolled beneath her feet that her alarm soon became lost in admiration. The mountains that rose everywhere around them seemed to float in a transparent sea of luminous vapor, with olive-orchards and well-tilled fields lying in far, dreamy distances below, while out towards the horizon silver gleams of the Mediterranean gradually widened to the view. Soothed by the hour, refreshed by the air, and filled with admiration for the beauty of all she saw, she surrendered herself to her situation with a feeling of solemn religious calm, as to some unfolding of the Divine Will, which might unroll like the landscape beneath her. They pursued their way in silence, rising higher and higher out of the shadows of the deep valleys below, the man who conducted them observing a strict reserve, but seeming to have a care for their welfare.

The twilight yet burned red in the sky, and painted with solemn lights the mossy walls of the little old town, as they plunged under a sombre antique gateway, and entered on a street as damp and dark as a cellar, which went up almost perpendicularly between tall, black stone walls that seemed to have neither windows nor doors. Agnes could only remember clambering upward, turning short corners, clattering down steep stone steps, under low archways, along narrow, ill-smelling passages, where the light that seemed so clear without the town was almost extinguished in utter night.

At last they entered the damp court of a huge, irregular pile of stone buildings. Here the men suddenly drew up, and Agnes's conductor, dismounting, came and took her silently from her saddle, saying briefly, "Come this way."

Elsie sprang from her seat in a moment, and placed herself at the side of her child.

"No, good mother," said the man with whom she had ridden, seizing her powerfully by the shoulders, and turning her round.

"What do you mean?" said Elsie, fiercely. "Are you going to keep me from my own child?"

"Patience!" replied the man. "You can't help yourself, so recommend yourself to God, and no harm shall come to you."

Agnes looked back at her grandmother.

"Fear not, dear grandmamma," she said, "the blessed angels will watch over us."

As she spoke, she followed her conductor through long, damp, mouldering passages and up flights of stone steps, and again through other long passages smelling of mould and damp, till at last he opened the door of an apartment from which streamed a light so dazzling to the eyes of Agnes that at first she could form no distinct conception as to where she was.

As soon as her eyesight cleared, she found herself in an apartment which to her simplicity seemed furnished with an unheard-of luxury. The walls were richly frescoed and gilded, and from a chandelier of Venetian glass the light fell upon a foot-cloth of brilliant tapestry which covered the marble floor. Gilded chairs and couches, covered with the softest Genoese velvet, invited to repose; while tables inlaid with choice mosaics stood here and there, sustaining rare vases, musical instruments, and many of the light, fanciful ornaments with which, in those days, the halls of women of condition were graced. At one end of the apartment was an alcove, where the rich velvet curtains were looped away with heavy cords and tassels of gold, displaying a smaller room, where was a bed with hangings of crimson satin embroidered with gold.

Agnes stood petrified with amazement, and put her hand to her head, as if to assure herself by the sense of touch that she was not dreaming, and then, with an impulse of curious wonder, began examining the apartment. The rich furniture and the many adornments, though only such as were common in the daily life of the great at that period, had for her simple eyes all the marvellousness of the most incredible illusion. She touched the velvet couches almost with fear, and passed from object to object in a sort of maze. When she arrived at the alcove, she thought she heard a slight rustling within, and then a smothered laugh. Her heart beat quick as she stopped to listen. There was a tittering sound, and a movement as if some one were shaking the curtain, and at last Giulietta stood in the doorway.

For a moment Agnes stood looking at her in utter bewilderment. Yes, surely it was Giulietta, dressed out in all the bravery of splendid apparel, her black hair shining and lustrous, great solid ear-rings of gold shaking in her ears, and a row of gold coins displayed around her neck.

She broke into a loud laugh at the sight of Agnes's astonished face.

"So, here you are!" she said, "Well, now, didn't I tell you so? You see he was in love with you, just as I said; and if you wouldn't come to him of your own accord, he must fly off with you."

"Oh, Giulietta!" said Agnes, springing towards her and catching her hands, "what does all this mean? and where have they carried poor grandmamma?"

"Oh, never worry about her! Do you know you are in high favor here, and any one who belongs to you gets good quarters? Your grandmother just now is at supper, I doubt not, with my mother; and a jolly time they will have of it, gossiping together."

"Your mother here, too?"

"Yes, simple, to be sure! I found it so much easier living here than in the old town that I sent for her, that she might have peace in her old age.—But how do you like your room? Were you not astonished to see it so brave? Know, then, pretty one, that it is all on account of the good courage of our band. For, you see, the people there in Rome (we won't say who) had given away all our captain's lands and palaces and villas to this one and that, as pleased them; and one pretty little villa in the mountains not far from here went to a stout old cardinal. What does a band of our men do, one night, but pounce on old red-hat and tie him up, while they helped themselves to what they liked through the house? True, they couldn't bring house and all; but they brought stores of rich furnishing, and left him thanking the saints that he was yet alive. So we arranged your rooms right nobly, thinking to please our captain when he comes. If you are not pleased, you will be ungrateful, that's all."

"Giulietta," said Agnes, who had scarcely seemed to listen to this prattle, so anxious was she to speak of what lay nearest her heart, "I want to see grandmamma. Can't you bring her to me?"

"No, my little princess, I can't. Do you know you are my mistress now? Well, you are; but there's one that's master of us both, and he says none must speak with you till he has seen you."

"And is he here?"

"No, he has been some time gone Northward, and has not returned,— though we expect him to-night. So compose yourself, and ask for anything in the world, but to see your grandmother, and I will show that I am your humble servant to command."

So saying, Giulietta curtsied archly and laughed, showing her white, shiny teeth, which looked as bright as pearls.

Agnes sat down on one of the velvet couches and leaned her head on her hand.

"Come, now, let me bring you some supper," said Giulietta. "What say you to a nice roast fowl and a bottle of wine?"

"How can you speak of such things in the holy time of Lent?" said Agnes.

"Oh, never you fear about that! Our holy Father Stefano sets such matters right for any of us in a twinkling, and especially would he do it for you."

"Oh, but, Giulietta, I don't want anything. I couldn't eat, if I were to try."

"Ta, ta, ta!" said Giulietta, going out. "Wait till you smell it. I shall be back in a little while."

And she left the room, locking the door after her.

In a few moments she returned, bearing a rich silver tray, on which was a covered dish that steamed a refreshing odor, together with a roll of white bread, and a small glass flacon containing a little choice wine.

By much entreaty and coaxing, Agnes was induced to partake of the bread, enough to revive her somewhat after the toils of the day; and then, a little reassured by the familiar presence of Giulietta, she began to undress, her former companion officiously assisting her.

"There, now, you are tired, my lady princess," she said. "I'll unlace your bodice. One of these days your gowns will be all of silk, and stiff with gold and pearls."

"Oh, Giulietta," said Agnes, "don't!—let me,—I don't need help."

"Ta, ta, ta!—you must learn to be waited on," said Giulietta, persisting. "But, Holy Virgin! what is the matter here? Oh, Agnes, what are you doing to yourself?"

"It's a penance, Giulietta," said Agnes, her face flushing.

"Well, I should think it was! Father Francesco ought to be ashamed of himself; he is a real butcher!"

"He does it to save my soul, Giulietta. The cross of our Lord without will heal a deadly wound within."

In her heart, Giulietta had somewhat of secret reverence for such austerities, which the whole instruction of her time and country taught her to regard as especially saintly. People who live in the senses more than in the world of reflection feel the force of such outward appeals. Giulietta made the sign of the cross, and looked grave for several minutes.

"Poor little dove!" she said at last, "if your sins must needs be expiated so, what will become of me? It must be that you will lay up stores of merit with God; for surely your sins do not need all this. Agnes, you will be a saint some day, like your namesake at the Convent, I truly do believe."

"Oh, no, no, Giulietta! don't talk so! God knows I wrestle with forbidden thoughts all the while. I am no saint, but the chief of sinners."

"That's what the saints all say," said Giulietta. "But, my dear princess, when he comes, he will forbid this; he is lordly, and will not suffer his little wife"—

"Giulietta, don't speak so,—I cannot hear it,—I must not be his wife,—I am vowed to be the spouse of the Lord."

"And yet you love our handsome prince," said Giulietta; "and there is the great sin you are breaking your little heart about. Well, now, it's all of that dry, sour old Father Francesco. I never could abide him,—he made such dismal pother about sin; old Father Girolamo was worth a dozen of him. If you would just see our good Father Stefano, now, he would set your mind at ease about your vows in a twinkling; and you must needs get them loosed, for our captain is born to command, and when princes stoop to us peasant-girls it isn't for us to say nay. It's being good as Saint Michael himself for him to think of you only in the holy way of marriage. I'll warrant me, there's many a lord cardinal at Rome that isn't so good; and as to princes, he is one of a thousand, a most holy and religious knight, or he would do as others do when they have the power."

Agnes, confused and agitated, turned away, and, as if seeking refuge, laid her down in the bed, looking timidly up at the unwonted splendor,—and then, hiding her face in the pillow, began repeating a prayer.

Giulietta sat by her a moment, till she felt, from the relaxing of the little hand, that the reaction of fatigue and intense excitement was beginning to take place. Nature would assert her rights, and the heavy curtain of sleep fell on the weary little head. Quietly extinguishing the lights, Giulietta left the room, locking the door.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CRISIS.

Agnes was so entirely exhausted with bodily fatigue and mental agitation that she slept soundly till awakened by the beams of the morning sun. Her first glance up at the gold-embroidered curtains of her bed occasioned a bewildered surprise;—she raised herself and looked around, slowly recovering her consciousness and the memory of the strange event which had placed her where she was. She rose hastily and went to the window to look out. This window was in a kind of circular tower projecting from the side of the building, such as one often sees in old Norman architecture;—it overhung not only a wall of dizzy height, but a precipice with a sheer descent of some thousand feet; and far below, spread out like a map in the distance, lay a prospect of enchanting richness. The eye might wander over orchards of silvery olives, plantations with their rows of mulberry-trees supporting the vines, now in the first tender spring green, scarlet fields of clover, and patches where the young corn was just showing its waving blades above the brown soil. Here and there rose tufts of stone-pines with their dark umbrella-tops towering above all other foliage, while far off in the blue distance a silvery belt of glittering spangles showed where the sea closed in the horizon-line. So high was the perch, so distant and dreamy the prospect, that Agues felt a sensation of giddiness, as if she were suspended over it in the air,—and turned away from the window, to look again at what seemed to her the surprising and unheard-of splendors of the apartment. There lay her simple peasant garb, on the rich velvet couch,—a strange sight in the midst of so much luxury. Having dressed herself, she sat down, and, covering her face with her hands, tried to reflect calmly on the position in which she was placed.

With the education she had received, she could look on this strange interruption of her pilgrimage only as a special assault upon her faith, instigated by those evil spirits that are ever setting themselves in conflict with the just. Such trials had befallen saints of whom she had read. They had been assailed by visions of worldly ease and luxury suddenly presented before them, for which they were tempted to deny their faith and sell their souls. Was it not, perhaps, as a punishment for having admitted the love of an excommunicated heretic into her heart, that this sore trial had been permitted to come upon her? And if she should fail? She shuddered, when she recalled the severe and terrible manner in which Father Francesco had warned her against yielding to the solicitations of an earthly love. To her it seemed as if that holy man must have been inspired with a prophetic foresight of her present position, and warned her against it. Those awful words came burning into her mind as when they seemed to issue like the voice of a spirit from the depths of the confessional:—"If ever you should yield to his love, and turn back from this heavenly marriage to follow him, you will accomplish his damnation and your own."

Agnes trembled in an agony of real belief, and with a vivid terror of the world to come such as belonged to the almost physical certainty with which the religious teaching of her time presented it to the popular mind. Was she, indeed, the cause of such awful danger to his soul? Might a false step now, a faltering human weakness, indeed plunge that soul, so dear, into a fiery abyss without bottom or shore? Should she forever hear his shrieks of torture and despair, his curses on the hour he had first known her? Her very blood curdled, her nerves froze, as she thought of it, and she threw herself on her knees and prayed with an anguish that brought the sweat in beaded drops to her forehead,—strange dew for so frail a lily!—and her prayer rose above all intercession of saints, above the seat even of the Virgin Mother herself, to the heart of her Redeemer, to Him who some divine instinct told her was alone mighty to save. We of the present day may look on her distress as unreal, as the result of a misguided sense of religious obligation; but the great Hearer of Prayer regards each heart in its own scope of vision, and helps not less the mistaken than the enlightened distress. And for that matter, who is enlightened? who carries to God's throne a trouble or a temptation in which there is not somewhere a misconception or a mistake?

And so it came to pass. Agnes rose from prayer with an experience which has been common to the members of the True Invisible Church, whether Catholic, Greek, or Protestant. "In the day when I cried Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul." She had that vivid sense of the sustaining presence and sympathy of an Almighty Saviour which is the substance of which all religious forms and appliances are the shadows; her soul was stayed on God, and was at peace, as truly as if she had been the veriest Puritan maiden that ever worshipped in a New-England meeting-house. She felt a calm superiority to all things earthly,—a profound reliance on that invisible aid which comes from God alone.

She was standing at her window, deep in thought, when Giulietta entered,—fresh and blooming,—bearing the breakfast-tray.

"Come, my little princess, here I am," she said, "with your breakfast! How do you find yourself, this morning?"

Agnes came towards her.

"Bless us, how grave we are!" said Giulietta. "What has come over us?"

"Giulietta, have you seen poor grandmamma this morning?"

"Poor grandmamma!" said Giulietta, mimicking the sad tone in which Agnes spoke,—"to be sure I have. I left her making a hearty breakfast. So fall to, and do the same,—for you don't know who may come to see you this morning."

"Giulietta, is he here?"

"He!" said Giulietta, laughing. "Do hear the little bird! It begins to chirp already! No, he is not here yet; but Pietro says he will come soon, and Pietro knows all his movements."

"Pietro is your husband?" said Agnes, inquiringly.

"Yes, to be sure,—and a pretty good one, too, as men go," said Giulietta. "They are sorry bargains, the best of them. But you'll get a prize, if you play your cards well. Do you know that the King of Naples and the King of France have both sent messages to our captain? Our men hold all the passes between Rome and Naples, and so every one sees the sense of gaining our captain's favor. But eat your breakfast, little one, while I go and see to Pietro and the men."

So saying, she bustled out of the room, locking the door behind her.

Agnes took a little bread and water,—resolved to fast and pray, as the only defence against the danger in which she stood.

After breakfasting, she retired into the inner room, and, opening the window, sat down and looked out on the prospect, and then, in a low voice, began singing a hymn of Savonarola's, which had been taught her by her uncle. It was entitled "Christ's Call to the Soul." The words were conceived in that tender spirit of mystical devotion which characterizes all this class of productions.

"Fair soul, created in the primal hour, Once pure and grand, And for whose sake I left my throne and power At God's right hand, By this sad heart pierced through because I loved thee, Let love and mercy to contrition move thee!

"Cast off the sins thy holy beauty veiling, Spirit divine! Vain against thee the hosts of hell assailing: My strength is thine! Drink from my side the cup of life immortal, And love will lead thee back to heaven's portal!

"I, for thy sake, was pierced with many sorrows, And bore the cross, Yet heeded not the galling of the arrows, The shame and loss. So faint not thou, whate'er the burden be: But bear it bravely, even to Calvary!"

While Agnes was singing, the door of the outer room was slowly opened, and Agostino Sarelli entered. He had just returned from Florence, having ridden day and night to meet her whom he expected to find within the walls of his fastness.

He entered so softly that Agnes did not hear his approach, and he stood listening to her singing. He had come back with his mind burning with indignation against the Pope and the whole hierarchy then ruling in Rome; but conversation with Father Antonio and the scenes he had witnessed at San Marco had converted the blind sense of personal wrong into a fixed principle of moral indignation and opposition. He no longer found himself checked by the pleading of his early religious recollections; for now he had a leader who realized in his own person all his conceptions of those primitive apostles and holy bishops who first fed the flock of the Lord in Italy. He had heard from his lips the fearless declaration, "If Rome is against me, know that it is not contrary to me, but to Christ, and its controversy is with God: doubt not that God will conquer"; and he embraced the cause with all the enthusiasm of patriotism and knighthood. In his view, the most holy place of his religion had been taken by a robber, who reigned in the name of Christ only to disgrace it; and he felt called to pledge his sword, his life, his knightly honor to do battle against him. He had urged his uncle in Milan to make interest for the cause of Savonarola with the King of France; and his uncle, with that crafty diplomacy which in those days formed the staple of what was called statesmanship, had seemed to listen favorably to his views,—intending, however, no more by his apparent assent than to withdraw his nephew from the dangers in which he stood in Italy, and bring him under his own influence and guardianship in the court of France. But the wily diplomate had sent Agostino Sarelli from his presence with the highest possible expectations of his influence both with the King of France and the Emperor of Germany in the present religious crisis in Italy.

And now the time was come, Agostino thought, to break the spell under which Agnes was held,—to show her the true character of the men whom she was beholding through a mist of veneration arising entirely from the dewy freshness of ignorant innocence. All the way home from Florence he had urged his horse onward, burning to meet her, to tell her all that he knew and felt, to claim her as his own, and to take her into the sphere of light and liberty in which he himself moved. He did not doubt his power, when she should once be where he could speak with her freely, without fear of interruption. Hers was a soul too good and pure, he said, to be kept in chains of slavish ignorance any longer. When she ceased singing, he spoke from the outer apartment,—"Agnes!"

The name was uttered in the softest tone, but it sent the blood to her heart, as if it were the summons of doom. Everything seemed to swim before her, and grow dark for a moment; but by a strong effort she lifted her heart in prayer, and, rising, came towards him.

Agostino had figured her to himself in all that soft and sacred innocence and freshness of bloom in which he had left her, a fair angel child, looking through sad, innocent eyes on a life whose sins and sorrows, and deeper loves and hates, she scarcely comprehended,—one that he might fold in his arms with protecting tenderness, while he gently reasoned with her fears and prejudices; but the figure that stood there in the curtained arch, with its solemn, calm, transparent paleness of face, its large, intense dark eyes, now vivid with some mysterious and concentrated resolve, struck a strange chill over him. Was it Agnes or a disembodied spirit that stood before him? For a few moments there fell such a pause between them as the intensity of some unexpressed feeling often brings with it, and which seems like a spell.

"Agnes! Agnes! is it you?" at last said the knight, in a low, hesitating tone. "Oh, my love, what has changed you so? Speak!—do speak! Are you angry with me? Are you angry that I brought you here?"

"My Lord, I am not angry," said Agnes, speaking in a cold, sad tone; "but you have committed a great sin in turning aside those vowed to a holy pilgrimage, and you tempt me to sin by this conversation, which ought not to be between us."

"Why not?" said Agostino. "You would not see me at Sorrento. I sought to warn you of the dangers of this pilgrimage,—to tell you that Rome is not what you think it is,—that it is not the seat of Christ, but a foul cage of unclean birds, a den of wickedness,—that he they call Pope is a vile impostor"—

"My Lord," said Agnes, speaking with a touch of something even commanding in her tone, "you have me at advantage, it is true, but you ought not to use it in trying to ruin my soul by blaspheming holy things." And then she added, in a tone of indescribable sadness, "Alas, that so noble and beautiful a soul should be in rebellion against the only True Church! Have you forgotten that good mother you spoke of? What must she feel to know that her son is an infidel!"

"I am not an infidel, Agnes; I am a true knight of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and a believer in the One True, Holy Church."

"How can that be?" said Agnes. "Ah, seek not to deceive me! My Lord, such a poor little girl as I am is not worth the pains."

"By the Holy Mother, Agnes, by the Holy Cross, I do not seek to deceive you! I speak on my honor as a knight and gentleman. I love you truly and honorably, and seek you among all women as my spotless wife, and would I lie to you?"

"My Lord, you have spoken words which it is a sin for me to hear, a peril to your soul to say; and if you had not, you must not seek me as a wife. Holy vows are upon me. I must be the wife of no man here; it is a sin even to think of it."

"Impossible, Agnes!" said Agostino, with a start. "You have not taken the veil already? If you had"—

"No, my Lord, I have not. I have only promised and vowed in my heart to do so when the Lord shall open the way."

"But such vows, dear Agnes, are often dispensed; they may be loosed by the priest. Now hear me,—only hear me. I believe as your uncle believes,—your good, pious uncle, whom you love so much. I have taken the sacrament from his hand; he has blessed me as a son. I believe as Jerome Savonarola believes. He it is, that holy prophet, who has proclaimed this Pope and his crew to be vile usurpers, reigning in the name of Christ."

"My Lord! my Lord! I must not hear more! I must not,—I cannot,—I will not!" said Agnes, becoming violently agitated, as she found herself listening with interest to the pleadings of her lover.

"Oh, Agnes, what has turned your heart against me? I thought you promised to love me a little?"

"Oh, hush! hush! don't plead with me!" she said, with a wild, affrighted look.

He sought to come towards her, and she sprang forward and threw herself at his feet.

"Oh, my Lord, for mercy's sake let me go! Let us go on our way! We will pray for you always,—yes, always!" And she looked up at him in an agony of earnestness.

"Am I so hateful to you, then, Agnes?"

"Hateful? Oh, no, no! God knows you are—I—I—yes, I love you too well, and you have too much power over me; but, oh, do not use it! If I hear you talk, I shall yield,—I surely shall, and we shall be lost, both of us! Oh, my God! I shall be the means of your damnation!"

"Agnes!"

"It is true! it is true! Oh, do not talk to me, but promise me, promise me, or I shall die! Have pity on me! have pity on yourself!"

In the agony of her feelings her voice became almost a shriek, and her wild, affrighted face had a deadly pallor; she looked like one in a death-agony. Agostino was alarmed, and hastened to soothe her, by promising whatever she required.

"Agnes, dear Agnes, I submit; only be calm. I promise anything,—anything in the wide world you can ask."

"Will you let me go?"

"Yes."

"And will you let my poor grandmamma go with me?"

"Yes."

"And you will not talk with me any more?"

"Not if you do not wish it. And now," he said, "that I have submitted to all these hard conditions, will you suffer me to raise you?"

He took her hands and lifted her up; they were cold, and she was trembling and shivering. He held them a moment; she tried to withdraw them, and he let them go.

"Farewell, Agnes!" he said. "I am going."

She raised both her hands and pressed the sharp cross to her bosom, but made no answer.

"I yield to your will," he continued. "Immediately when I leave you, your grandmother will come to you, and the attendants who brought you here will conduct you to the high-road. For me, since it is your will, I part here. Farewell, Agnes!"

He held out his hand, but she stood as before, pale and silent, with her hands clasped on her breast.

"Do your vows forbid even a farewell to a poor, humble friend?" said the knight, in a low tone.

"I cannot," said Agnes, speaking at broken intervals, in a suffocating voice,—"for your sake I cannot! I bear this pain for you,—for you! Oh, repent, and meet me in heaven!"

She gave him her hand; he kneeled and kissed it, pressed it to his forehead, then rose and left the room.

For a moment after the departure of the Cavalier, Agnes felt a bitter pang,—the pain which one feels on first realizing that a dear friend is lost forever; and then, rousing herself with a start and a sigh, she hurried into the inner room and threw herself on her knees, giving thanks that the dreadful trial was past and that she had not been left to fail.

In a few moments she heard the voice of her grandmother in the outer apartment, and the old wrinkled creature clasped her grandchild in her arms, and wept with a passionate abandonment of fondness, calling her by every tender and endearing name which mothers give to their infants.

"After all," said Elsie, "these are not such bad people, and I have been right well entertained among them. They are of ourselves,—they do not prey on the poor, but only on our enemies, the princes and nobles, who look on us as sheep to be shorn and slaughtered for their wearing and eating. These men are none such, but pitiful to poor peasants and old widows, whom they feed and clothe out of the spoils of the rich. As to their captain,—would you believe it?—he is the same handsome gentleman who once gave you a ring,—you may have forgotten him, as you never think of such things, but I knew him in a moment,—and such a religious man, that no sooner did he find that we were pilgrims on a holy errand than he gave orders to have us set free with all honor, and a band of the best of them to escort us through the mountains; and the people of the town are all moved to do us reverence, and coming with garlands and flowers to wish us well and ask our prayers. So let us set forth immediately."

Agnes followed her grandmother through the long passages and down the dark, mouldy stair-way to the court-yard, where two horses were standing caparisoned for them. A troop of men in high peaked hats, cloaked and plumed, were preparing also to mount, while a throng of women and children stood pressing around. When Agnes appeared, enthusiastic cries were heard: "Viva Jesu!" "Viva Maria!" "Viva! viva Jesu! nostro Re!" and showers of myrtle-branches and garlands fell around. "Pray for us!" "Pray for us, holy pilgrims!" was uttered eagerly by one and another. Mothers held up their children; and beggars and cripples, aged and sick,—never absent in an Italian town,—joined with loud cries in the general enthusiasm. Agnes stood amid it all, pale and serene, with that elevated expression of heavenly calm on her features which is often the clear shining of the soul after the wrench and torture of some great interior conflict. She felt that the last earthly chain was broken, and that now she belonged to Heaven alone. She scarcely saw or heard what was around her, wrapt in the calm of inward prayer.

"Look at her! she is beautiful as the Madonna!" said one and another, "She is divine as Santa Catarina!" said others. "She might have been the wife of our chief, who is a nobleman of the oldest blood, but she chose to be the bride of the Lord," said others: for Giulietta, with a woman's love of romancing, had not failed to make the most among her companions of the love-adventures of Agnes.

Agnes meanwhile was seated on her palfrey, and the whole train passed out of the court-yard into the dim, narrow street,—men, women, and children following. On reaching the public square, they halted a moment by the side of the antique fountain to water their horses. The groups that surrounded it at this time were such as a painter would have delighted to copy. The women and girls of this obscure mountain-town had all that peculiar beauty of form and attitude which appears in the studies of the antique; and as they poised on their heads their copper water-jars of the old Etruscan pattern, they seemed as if they might be statues of golden bronze, had not the warm tints of their complexion, the brilliancy of their large eyes, and the bright, picturesque colors of their attire given the richness of painting to their classic outlines. Then, too, the men, with their finely-moulded limbs, their figures so straight and strong and elastic, their graceful attitudes, and their well-fitting, showy costumes, formed a no less imposing feature in the scene. Among them all sat Agnes waiting on her palfrey, seeming scarcely conscious of the enthusiasm which surrounded her. Some admiring friend had placed in her hand a large bough of blossoming hawthorn,—which she held unconsciously, as, with a sort of childlike simplicity, she turned from right to left, to make reply to the request for prayers, or to return thanks for the offered benediction of some one in the crowd.

When all the preparations were at last finished, the procession of mounted horsemen, with a confused gathering of the population, passed down the streets to the gates of the city, and as they passed they sang the words of the Crusaders' Hymn, which had fluttered back into the traditionary memory of Europe from the knights going to redeem the Holy Sepulchre.

"Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all Nature, O Thou of God and man the Son! Thee will I honor, Thee will I cherish, Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown!

"Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands, Robed in the pleasing garb of spring: Jesus shines fairer, Jesus is purer Who makes the woful heart to sing!

"Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host; Jesus shines fairer, Jesus is purer, Than all the angels heaven can boast!"

They were singing the second verse, as, emerging from the dark old gate-way of the town, all the distant landscape of silvery olive-orchards, crimson clover-fields, blossoming almond-trees, fig-trees, and grape-vines, just in the tender green of spring, burst upon their view. Agnes felt a kind of inspiration. From the high mountain elevation she could discern the far-off brightness of the sea— all between one vision of beauty,—and the religious enthusiasm which possessed all around her had in her eye all the value of the most solid and reasonable faith. With us, who may look on it from a colder and more distant point of view, doubts may be suggested whether this naive impressibility to religious influences, this simple, whole-hearted abandonment to their expression, had any real practical value. The fact that any or all of the actors might before night rob or stab or lie quite as freely as if it has not occurred may well give reason for such a question. Be this as it may, the phenomenon is not confined to Italy or the religion of the Middle Ages, but exhibits itself in many a prayer-meeting and camp-meeting of modern days. For our own part, we hold it better to have even transient upliftings of the nobler and more devout element of man's nature than never to have any at all, and that he who goes on in worldly and sordid courses, without ever a spark of religious enthusiasm or a throb of aspiration, is less of a man than he who sometimes soars heavenward, though his wings be weak and he fall again.

In all this scene Agostino Sarelli took no part. He had simply given orders for the safe-conduct of Agnes, and then retired to his own room. From a window, however, he watched the procession as it passed through the gates of the city, and his resolution was immediately taken to proceed at once by a secret path to the place where the pilgrims should emerge upon the high-road.

He had been induced to allow the departure of Agnes, from seeing the utter hopelessness by any argument or persuasion of removing a barrier that was so vitally interwoven with the most sensitive religious nerves of her being. He saw in her terrified looks, in the deadly paleness of her face, how real and unaffected was the anguish which his words gave her; he saw that the very consciousness of her own love to him produced a sense of weakness which made her shrink in utter terror from his arguments.

"There is no remedy," he said, "but to let her go to Rome and see with her own eyes how utterly false and vain is the vision which she draws from the purity of her own believing soul. What Christian would not wish that these fair dreams had any earthly reality? But this gentle dove must not be left unprotected to fly into that foul, unclean cage of vultures and harpies. Deadly as the peril may be to me to breathe the air of Rome, I will be around her invisibly to watch over her."

CHAPTER XXVI.

ROME.

A vision rises upon us from the land of shadows. We see a wide plain, miles and miles in extent, rolling in soft billows of green, and girded on all sides by blue mountains, whose silver crests gleaming in the setting sunlight tell that the winter yet lingers on their tops, though spring has decked all the plain. So silent, so lonely, so fair is this waving expanse with its guardian mountains, it might be some wild solitude, an American prairie or Asiatic steppe, but that in the midst thereof, on some billows of rolling land, we discern a city, sombre, quaint, and old,—a city of dreams and mysteries,—a city of the living and the dead. And this is Rome,—weird, wonderful, ancient, mighty Rome,—mighty once by physical force and grandeur, mightier now in physical decadence and weakness by the spell of a potent moral enchantment.

As the sun is moving westward, the whole air around becomes flooded with a luminousness which seems to transfuse itself with pervading presence through every part of the city, and make all its ruinous and mossy age bright and living. The air shivers with the silver vibrations of hundreds of bells, and the evening glory goes up and down, soft-footed and angelic, transfiguring all things. The broken columns of the Forum seem to swim in golden mist, and luminous floods fill the Coliseum as it stands with its thousand arches looking out into the city like so many sightless eye-holes in the skull of the past. The tender light pours up streets dank and ill-paved,—into noisome and cavernous dens called houses, where the peasantry of to-day vegetate in contented subservience. It illuminates many a dingy court-yard, where the moss is green on the walls, and gurgling fountains fall into quaint old sculptured basins. It lights up the gorgeous palaces of Rome's modern princes, built with stones wrenched from ancient ruins. It streams through a wilderness of churches, each with its tolling prayer-bell, and steals through painted windows into the dazzling confusion of pictured and gilded glories that glitter and gleam from roof and wall within. And it goes, too, across the Tiber, up the filthy and noisome Ghetto, where, hemmed in by ghostly superstition, the sons of Israel are growing up without vital day, like wan white plants in cellars; and the black mournful obelisks of the cypresses in the villas around, it touches with a solemn glory. The castle of St. Angelo looks like a great translucent, luminous orb, and the statues of saints and apostles on the top of St. John Lateran glow as if made of living fire, and seem to stretch out glorified hands of welcome to the pilgrims that are approaching the Holy City across the soft, palpitating sea of green that lies stretched like a misty veil around it.

Then, as now, Rome was an enchantress of mighty and wonderful power, with her damp, and mud, and mould, her ill-fed, ill-housed populace, her ruins of old glory rising dim and ghostly amid her palaces of to-day. With all her awful secrets of rapine, cruelty, ambition, injustice,—with her foul orgies of unnatural crime,—with the very corruption of the old buried Roman Empire steaming up as from a charnel-house, and permeating all modern life with its effluvium of deadly uncleanness,—still Rome had that strange, bewildering charm of melancholy grandeur and glory which made all hearts cleave to her, and eyes and feet turn longingly towards her from the ends of the earth. Great souls and pious yearned for her as for a mother, and could not be quieted till they had kissed the dust of her streets. There they fondly thought was rest to be found,—that rest which through all weary life ever recedes like the mirage of the desert; there sins were to be shriven which no common priest might forgive, and heavy burdens unbound from the conscience by an infallible wisdom; there was to be revealed to the praying soul the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Even the mighty spirit of Luther yearned for the breast of this great unknown mother, and came humbly thither to seek the repose which he found afterwards in Jesus.

At this golden twilight-hour along the Appian Way come the pilgrims of our story with prayers and tears of thankfulness. Agnes looks forward and sees the saintly forms on St. John Lateran standing in a cloud of golden light and stretching out protecting hands to bless her.

"See, see, grandmother!" she exclaimed,—"yonder is our Father's house, and all the saints beckon us home! Glory be to God who hath brought us hither!"

Within the church the evening-service is going on, and the soft glory streaming in reveals that dizzying confusion of riches and brightness with which the sensuous and color-loving Italian delights to encircle the shrine of the Heavenly Majesty. Pictured angels in cloudy wreaths smile down from the gold-fretted roofs and over the round, graceful arches; and the floor seems like a translucent sea of precious marbles and gems fused into solid brightness, and reflecting in long gleams and streaks dim intimations of the sculptured and gilded glories above. Altar and shrine are now veiled in that rich violet hue which the Church has chosen for its mourning color; and violet vestments, taking the place of the gorgeous robes of the ecclesiastics, tell the approach of that holy week of sadness when all Christendom falls in penitence at the feet of that Almighty Love once sorrowful and slain for her.

The long-drawn aisles are now full to overflowing with that weird chanting which one hears nowhere but in Rome at this solemn season. Those voices, neither of men nor women, have a wild, morbid energy which seems to search every fibre of the nervous system, and, instead of soothing or calming, to awaken strange yearning agonies of pain, ghostly unquiet longings, and endless feverish, unrestful cravings. The sounds now swell and flood the church as with a rushing torrent of wailing and clamorous supplication,—now recede and moan themselves away to silence in far-distant aisles, like the last faint sigh of discouragement and despair. Anon they burst out from the roof, they drop from arches and pictures, they rise like steam from the glassy pavement, and, meeting, mingle in wavering clamors of lamentation and shrieks of anguish. One might fancy lost souls from out the infinite and dreary abysses of utter separation from God might thus wearily and aimlessly moan and wail, breaking into agonized tumults of desire, and trembling back into exhaustions of despair. Such music brings only throbbings and yearnings, but no peace; and yonder, on the glassy floor, at the foot of a crucifix, a poor mortal lies sobbing and quivering under its pitiless power, as if it had wrenched every tenderest nerve of memory, and torn open every half-healed wound of the soul.

When the chanting ceases, he rises slow and tottering, and we see in the wan face turning towards the dim light the well-remembered features of Father Francesco. Driven to despair by the wild, ungovernable force of his unfortunate love, weary of striving, overborne with a hopeless and continually accumulating load of guilt, he had come to Rome to lay down at the feet of heavenly wisdom the burden which he can no longer bear alone; and rising now, he totters to a confessional where sits a holy cardinal to whom has been deputed the office to hear and judge those sins which no subordinate power in the Church is competent to absolve.

Father Francesco kneels down with a despairing, confiding movement, such as one makes, when, after a long struggle of anguish, one has found a refuge; and the churchman within inclining his ear to the grating, the confession begins.

Could we only be clairvoyant, it would be worth our while to note the difference between the two faces, separated only by the thin grating of the confessional, but belonging to souls whom an abyss wide as eternity must forever divide from any common ground of understanding.