{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2139/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2139","id":"gutenberg_2139","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2139","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Historical Novels","Category: Novels","Christian saints","Women and religion"],"text":"Produced by Brett Fishburne.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlvira:  The Heroine of Vesuvius\n\n\nby\n\nRev. A. J. O'Reilly, D.D.\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\n\nThe Penitent Saints\n\n\nThe interesting and instructive character of this sensational narrative,\nwhich we cull from the traditions of a past generation, must cover\nthe shortcomings of the pen that has labored to present it in an\nEnglish dress.\n\nWe are aware that the propriety of drawing from the oblivion of\nforgotten literature such a story will be questioned.  The decay of\nthe chivalrous spirit of the middle ages, and the prudish, puritanical\ncode of morality that has superseded the simple manners of our\nforefathers, render it hazardous to cast into the hands of the present\ngeneration the thrilling records of sin and repentance such as they\nwere seen and recorded in days gone by.  Yet in the midst of a\nliterature professedly false, and which paints in fascinating colors\nthe various phases of unrepented vice and crime, without the redeeming\nshadows of honor and Christian morality, our little volume must fall\na welcome sunbeam.  The strange career of our heroine constitutes a\nsensational biography charming and beautiful in the moral it presents.\n\nThe evils of mixed marriages, of secret societies, of intemperance,\nand the indulgence of self-love in ardent and enthusiastic youth, find\nhere the record of their fatal influence on social life, reflected\nthrough the medium of historical facts.  Therefore we present to the\nyoung a chapter of warning--a tale of the past with a deep moral for\nthe present.\n\nThe circumstances of our tale are extraordinary.  A young girl dresses\nin male attire, murders her father, becomes an officer in the army,\ngoes through the horrors of battle, and dies a SAINT.\n\nTruly we have here matter sensational enough for the most exacting\nnovelist; but we disclaim all effort to play upon the passions, or\nadd another work of fiction to the mass of irreligious trash so powerful\nin the employ of the evil one for the seduction of youth.  In the\nvaried scenes of life there are many actions influenced by secret\nmotives known only to the heart that harbors them.  Not all are\ndishonorable.  It takes a great deal of guilt to make a person as black\nas he is painted by his enemies.  Many a brave heart has, under the\ngarb of an impropriety, accomplished heroic acts of self-denial.\n\nHistory is teeming with instances where the love of creatures, and even\nthe holier and more sublime love of the Creator, have, in moments of\nenthusiasm, induced tender females to forget the weakness of their\nsex and successfully fulfil the spheres of manhood.  These scenes, so\ncensurable, are extraordinary more from the rarity of their occurrence\nthan from the motives that inspire them, and thus our tale draws much\nof its thrilling interest from the unique character of its details.\n\n\"But what a saint!\" we fancy we hear whispered by the fastidious and\nscrupulous into whose hand our little work may fall.\n\nInadvertently the thought will find a similar expression from the\nsuperficial reader; but if we consider a little, our heroine presents\na career not more extraordinary than those that excite our surprise\nin the lives of the penitent saints venerated on the alters of the\nChurch.  Sanctity is not to be judged by antecedents.  The soul\ncrimsoned with guilt may, in the crucible of repentance, become white\nlike the crystal snow before it touches the earth.  This consoling\nthought is not a mere assertion, but a matter of faith confirmed by\nfact.  There are as great names among the penitent saints of the\nChurch as amongst the few brilliant stars whose baptismal innocence\nwas never dimmed by any cloud.\n\nAdvance the rule that the early excesses of the penitent stains must\ndebar them from the esteem their heroic repentance has won; then we\nmust tear to pieces the consoling volumes of hagiology, we must drag\ndown Paul, Peter, Augustine, Jerome, Magdalen, and a host of illustrious\npenitents from their thrones amongst the galaxy of the elect, and cast\nthe thrilling records of their repentance into the oblivion their early\ncareer would seem to merit.  If we are to have no saints but those of\nwhom it is testified they never did a wrong act, then the catalogue\nof sanctity will be reduced to baptized infants who died before coming\nto the use of reason, and a few favored adults who could be counted\non the fingers.\n\nIs it not rather the spirit and practice of the Church to propose to\nher erring children the heroic example of souls who passed through the\nstorms and trials of life, who had the same weaknesses to contend with,\nthe same enemies to combat, as they have, whose triumph is her glory\nand her crown?  The Catholic Church, which has so successfully promoted\nthe civilization of society and the moral regeneration of nations,\nachieved her triumph by the conversion of those she first drew from\ndarkness.  Placed as lights on the rocks of eternity, and shining on\nus who are yet tossed about on the stormy seas of time, the penitent\nsaints serve us as saving beacons to guide our course during the\ntempest.  Many a feeble soul would have suffered shipwreck had it not\ntaken refuge near those tutelary towers where are suspended the memorial\ndeeds of the sainted heroes whose armor was sackcloth, whose watchword\nthe sigh of repentance poured out in the lonely midnight.\n\nWhile Augustine was struggling with the attractions of the world which\nhad seduced his warm African heart, whose gilded chains seemed once\nso light, he animated himself to Christian courage by the examples of\nvirtue which he had seen crowned in the Church triumphant.\n\n\"Canst thou not do,\" he said to himself, \"what these have done?  Timid\nyouths and tender maidens have abandoned the deceitful joys of time\nfor the imperishable goods of eternity; canst thou not do likewise?\nWere these lions, and art thou a timid deer?\"  Thus this illustrious\npenitent, who was one of the brightest lights of Christianity, has\nmade known to us the triumph he gained in his internal struggles by\nthe examples of his predecessors in the brave band of penitents who\nshed a luminous ray on the pitchy darkness of his path.\n\nThe life of St. Anthony, written by St. Athanasius, produced such a\nsensation in the Christian world that the desolate caverns of Thebias\nwere not able to receive all who wished to imitate that holy solitary.\nRoman matrons were then seen to create for themselves a solitude in\nthe heart of their luxurious capital; offices of the palace, bedizened\nin purple and gold, deserted the court, amid the rejoicings of a\nfestival, for the date-tree and the brackish rivulets of Upper Egypt!\n\nWhere, then, our error in drawing from the archives of the past another\nbeautiful and thrilling tale of repentance which may fall with cheerful\nrays of encouragement on the soul engaged in the fierce combat with\nself?\n\nTo us the simple, touching story of Alvira has brought a charm and a\nbalm.  Seeking to impart to others its interest, its amusement, and\nits moral, we cast it afloat on the sea of literature, to meet,\nprobably, a premature grave in this age of irreligion and presumptuous\ndenial of the necessities of penance.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nChapter I.                                        Page\nParis One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago . . . . . .    5\n\nChapter II.\nThe Usurer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   10\n\nChapter III.\nA Mixed Marriage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   13\n\nChapter IV.\nA Youth Trained in the Way he should Walk . . . .   18\n\nChapter V.\nOur Heroines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   27\n\nChapter VI.\nA Secret Revealed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   33\n\nChapter VII.\nTears on Earth, Joy in Heaven . . . . . . . . . .   42\n\nChapter VIII.\nMadeleine's Happy Death . . . . . . . . . . . . .   48\n\nChapter IX.\nOne Abyss Invokes Another . . . . . . . . . . . .   52\n\nChapter X.\nOn the Trail  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   57\n\nChapter XI.\nThe Flight  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   62\n\nChapter XII.\nGeneva  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   71\n\nChapter XIII.\nThe Secret Societies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   75\n\nChapter XIV.\nThe Freemason's Home  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   89\n\nChapter XV.\nTragedy in the Mountains  . . . . . . . . . . . .   96\n\nChapter XVI.\nA Funeral in the Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  110\n\nChapter XVII.\nAn Unwritten Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  115\n\nChapter XVIII.\nIn Uniform  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  125\n\nChapter XIX.\nRemorse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  131\n\nChapter XX.\nNaples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  141\n\nChapter XXI.\nEngagement with Brigands  . . . . . . . . . . . .  147\n\nChapter XXII.\nThe Morning After the Battle  . . . . . . . . . .  156\n\nChapter XXIII.\nReturn--A Triumph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  161\n\nChapter XXIV.\nAlvira's Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  165\n\nChapter XXV.\nHonor Saved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  183\n\nChapter XXVI.\nRepentance  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  190\n\nChapter XXVII.\nThe Privileges of Holy Souls  . . . . . . . . . .  199\n\nChapter XXVIII.\nA Vision of Purgatory--A Dear One Saved . . . . .  202\n\nChapter XXIX.\nUnexpected Meeting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  207\n\nChapter XXX.\nConclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  214\n\n\n\n\nChapter I.\n\nParis One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago.\n\n\n\"Paris is on fire!\"  \"The Tuileries burnt!\"  \"The Hotel de Ville in\nashes!\"  There are few who do not remember how the world was electrified\nwith the telegrams that a few years ago announced the destruction of\nthe French capital. It was the tragic finale of a disastrous war between\nrival nations; yet the flames were not sent on high to the neutral\nheavens to be the beacon of triumph and revenge of a conquering army,\nbut set on fire by its own people, who, in a fanaticism unequalled in\nthe history of nations would see their beautiful city a heap of ashes\nrather than a flourishing capital in the power of its rightful rulers.\nFast were the devouring elements leaping through the palaces and superb\npublic buildings of the city; the petroleum flames were ascending from\nbasement to roof; streets were in sheets of fire; the charred beams\nwere breaking; the walls fell with thundering crash--the empress city\nwas indeed on fire.  Like the winds unchained by the storm-god, the\npassions of men marked their accursed sweep over the fairest city of\nEurope in torrents of human blood and the wreck of material grandeur.\n\nThose who have visited the superb queen of cities as she once flourished\nin our days could not, even in imagination, grasp the contrast between\nParis of the present and the Paris of two hundred years ago.  With a\npower more destructive than the petroleum of the Commune, we must, in\nthough, sweep away the Tuileries, the boulevards, the Opera-House and\nsuperb buildings that surround the Champs Elysees; on their sites we\nmust build old, tottering, ill-shaped houses, six and seven stories\nhigh, confining narrow and dirty streets that wind in lanes and alleys\ninto serpentine labyrinths, reeking with filthy odors and noxious\nvapors.  Fill those narrow streets with a lazy, ill-clad people--men\nin short skirts and clogs, squatting on the steps of antiquated cafes,\nsmoking canes steeped in opium, awaiting the beck of some political\nfirebrand to tear each other to pieces--and in this description you\nplace before the mind's eye the city some writers have painted as\nthe Paris of two hundred years ago.\n\nBut the old city has passed away.  Like the fabulous creations we have\nread of in the tales of childhood, palaces, temples, boulevards, and\ntheatres have sprung up on the site of the antiquated and labyrinthine\ncity.  Under the dynasty of the Napoleons the capital was rebuilt with\nlavish magnificence.  Accustomed to gaze on the splendor of the sun,\nwe seldom advert to its real magnificence in our universe; but pour\nits golden flood on the sightless eyeball, and all language would fail\nto tell the impression upon the paralyzed soul.  Thus, in a minor\ndegree, the emigrant from the southern seas who has been for years\namongst the cabins on the outskirts of uncultivated plains, where\ncities were built of huts, where spireless churches of thatched roof\nserved for the basilicas of divine worship, and where public justice\nwas administered under canvas, is startled and delighted with the\nrefinement and civilization of his more favored fellow-mortal who lives\nin the French capital.\n\nParis has been rudely disfigured in the fury of her Communist storm;\nyet, in the invincible energy of the French character, the people who\npaid to the conquering nation in fifteen months nine milliards of\nfrancs will restore the broken ornaments of the empress city.  From\nthe smoking walls and unsightly ruins of bureaux and palaces that wring\na tear from the patriot, France will see life restored to the emblem\nof her greatness, the phoenix-like, will rise on the horizon of time\nto claim for the future generation her position among the first-rate\npowers of Europe.\n\nTo the old city we must wend our way in thought.  Crossing the venerable\nbridge at Notre Dame, we enter at once the Rue de Seine, where we\npause before the bank and residence of Cassier.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II.\n\nThe Usurer.\n\n\nAt a desk in the office we observe a lowsized, whiskered man.\nIntelligence beams from a lofty brow; sharp features an aquiline nose\ntell of Jewish character; his eye glistens and dulls as the heaving\nheart throbs with its tides of joy and sorrow.  Speculation, that\nglides at times into golden dreams, brightens his whole features with\na sunbeam of joy; but suddenly it is clouded.  Some unseen intruder\ncasts a baneful shadow on the ungrasped prize; the features of the\nusurer contract, the hand is clenched, the brow is wrinkled, and woe\nbetide the luckless debtor whose misfortunes would lead him to the\nbanker's bureau during the eclipse of his good-humor!\n\nCassier was a banker by name, but in reality dealt in usurious loans,\nShylock-like wringing the pound of flesh from the victims of his\navarice.  He was known and dreaded by all the honest tradesmen of the\ncity; the curse of the orphan and the widow, whom he unfeelingly drove\ninto the streets, followed in his path; the children stopped their\ngames and hid until he passed.  That repulsive character which haunts\nthe evil-doers of society marked the aged banker as an object of dread\nand scorn to his immediate neighbors.\n\nIn religion Cassier at first strongly advocated the principles of\nLutheranism; but, as is ever the case with those set adrift on the sea\nof doubt, freed from the anchor of faith, the definite character of\nhis belief was shipwrecked in a confusion of ideas.  At length he\nlapsed into the negative deism of the French infidels, just then\ncommencing to gain ground in France.  He joined them, too, in open\nblasphemies against God and plotting against the stability of the\nGovernment.  The blood chills at reading some of the awful oaths\nadministered to the partisans of those secret societies.  They proposed\nto war against God, to sweep away all salutary checks against the\nindulgence of passion, to level the alter and the throne, and advocated\nthe claims of those impious theories that in modern times have found\ntheir fullest development in Mormonism and Communism.\n\nFurther on we shall find this noxious weed, that flourishes in the\nvineyards whose hedges are broken down, producing its poisonous fruit.\nBut it was at this period of our history that he became a frequent\nattendant at their reunions, returning at midnight, half intoxicated,\nto pour into the horrified ears of his wife and children the issue of\nthe last blasphemous and revolutionary debate that marked the progress\nand development of their impious tendencies.\n\nNo wonder Heaven sent on the Cassier family the curse that forms the\nthrill of our tragic memoir.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III.\n\nA Mixed Marriage.\n\n\nThe Catholic Church has placed restrictions on unions that are not\nblessed by Heaven.  Benedict XIV. has called them DETESTABLE.  A\nsad experience has proved the wisdom of the warning.  When the love\nthat has existed in the blinding fervor of passion has subsided into\nthe realities of every-day life, the bond of nuptial duty will be\nreligion.  But the conflict of religious sentiment produces a divided\ncamp.\n\nThe offspring must of necessity be of negative faith.  When intelligence\ndawns on the young soul, its first reasoning powers are caught in a\ndilemma.  Reverential and filial awe chains the child to the father\nand chains it to the mother; but the father may sternly command the\nMethodist chapel for Sunday service; the mother will wish to see her\nlittle one worship before the alters of the Church.  Fear or love wins\nthe trusting child, but neither gains a sincere believer.\n\nSee that young mother, silent and fretful; the rouge that grief gives\nthe moistened eye tells its own tale of secret weeping.\n\nTrusting, confiding in the power of young love, attracted by the wealth,\nthe family, or the manners of her suitor, she allows the indissoluble\ntie to bind her in unholy wedlock.  Soon the faith she has trifled\nwith assumes its mastery in her repentant heart, but liberty is gone;\nfor the dream of conjugal bliss which dazzled when making her choice,\nshe finds herself plunged for life into the most galling and\nirremediable of human sorrows--secret domestic persecution.  Few brave\nthe trial; the largest number go with the current to the greater evil\nof apostasy.\n\nCassier loved a beautiful Catholic girl named Madeleine.  Blinded by\nthe stronger passion, he waived religious prejudice.  He wooed, he\npromised, he won.  The timid Madeleine, beneath her rich suitor in\nposition, dazzled by wealth, and decoyed by the fair promises that\nso often deceive the confiding character of girlhood, gave her hand\nand her heart to a destiny she soon learned to lament.\n\nFancy had built castles of future enjoyment; dress, ornament, and\nsociety waved their fascinating wings over her path.  Unacquainted\nwith their shadowy pleasures, her preparations for her nuptials were\na dream of joy, too soon to be blasted with the realities of suffering\nthat characterize the union not blessed by Heaven.  Amid the music\nand flowers, amid the congratulations of a thousand admiring friends,\nwith heart and step as light as childhood, Madeleine, like victims,\ndressed in flowers and gold, led to the alter of Jupiter in the\nCapitol of old, was conducted from the bridal alter to the sacrifice\nof her future joy.  Story oft told in the vicissitudes of betrayed\ninnocence and in the fate of those who build their happiness in the\ncastles of fancy:  like the brilliancy of sunset her moment of pleasure\nfaded; the novelty and tinsel of her gilded home lost their charm,\nand the virtue of her childhood was wrecked on golden rocks.  She no\nlonger went to daily Mass; her visits to the convent became less\nfrequent, her dress lighter; her conversation, toned by the ideas of\npride and self-love reflected from the society she moved in, was profane\nand irreligious; and soon the roses of Christian virtue that bloom in\nthe cheek of innocent maidenhood became sick and withered in the heated,\nfeverish air of perverse influences that tainted her gilded home.\n\nSixteen years of sorrow and repentance had passed over Madeleine,\nand found her, at the commencement of our narrative, the victim of\nconsumption and internal anguish, the more keen because the more secret.\nThe outward world believed her happy; many silly maidens, in moments\nof vanity, deemed they could have gained heaven if they were possessed\nof Madeleine's wealth, her jewels, her carriages, her dresses; but were\nthe veils that shroud the hypocrisy of human joy raised for the warning\nof the uninitiated, many a noble heart like Madeleine's would show the\nblight of disappointment, with the thorns thick and sharp under the\nflowers that are strewn on their path.  The sympathy of manhood, ever\nflung over the couch of suffering beauty, must hover in sighs of\nregret over the ill-fated Madeleine, whose discolored eye and attenuated\nform, whose pallid cheek, furrowed by incessant tears, told the wreck\nof a beautiful girl sinking to an early tomb.\n\nHer children--three in number--cause her deepest anxiety; they are the\nheroes of our tale, and must at once be introduced to the reader.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV.\n\nA Youth Trained in the Way He Should Walk.\n\n\n                       To-morrow--\n  'Tis a period nowhere to be found\n  In all the hoary registers of time,\n  Unless, perchance, in the fool's calendar.\n  Wisdom disdains the word, nor holds society\n  With those who own it.\n  'Tis Fancy's child, and Folly is its father;\n  Wrought of such stuff as dreams are, and as baseless\n  As the fantastic visions of the evening.\n                                     --Coulton.\n\n\nLike one of those rare and beautiful flowers found on the mountain-side\nin fellowship with plants of inferior beauty, the heir of the\nCassier family is a strange exception of heroic virtue in the midst\nof a school of seduction.  The saints were never exotics in their own\ncircle.  Their early histories are filled with sad records confirming\nthe prophecy of our blessed Lord:  \"The world will hate you because\nit loves not me.\"\n\nThe student of hagiology recalls with a sight the touching fate of\na Dympna who was the martyred victim of a father's impiety; of a\nStanislaus pursued by brothers who thirsted for his blood; of a Damian\nwho nearly starved under his stepfather's cruelty; of martyrs led to\nthe criminal stone for decapitation by inhuman parents.\n\nLouis Marie, the eldest of Cassier's children, was of a naturally good\ndisposition.  Through the solicitations of his mother and the guidance\nof an unseen Providence that watched over his youth, he was early\nsent to the care of the Jesuits.  Under the direction of the holy and\nsainted members of this order he soon gave hope of a religious and\nvirtuous manhood.  Away from the scoffs of an unbelieving father and\nthe weakening seductions of pleasure, he opened his generous soul to\nthose salutary impressions of virtue which draw the soul to God and\nenable it to despise the frivolities of life.\n\nThe vacation, to other youths a time of pleasure, to Louis was tedious.\nThough passionately attached to his mother, yet the impious and often\nblasphemous remarks of his father chilled his heart; the levity with\nwhich his sisters ridiculed his piety was very disagreeable; hence,\nunder the guidance of a supernatural call to grace, he longed to be\nback with the kind fathers, where the quiet joys of study and solitude\nfar outweighed the short-lived excitement called pleasure by his\nworldly sisters.  This religious tendency found at last its consummation\nin an act of heroic self-denial which leads us to scenes of touching\ninterest on the threshold of this extraordinary historical drama.\n\nAt the time our narrative commences Louis was seriously meditating\nhis flight from home and the world to bury himself in some cloister\nof religion.  His studies of philosophy and history had convinced\nhim of the immortality of the soul and the vanity of all human\ngreatness.  In his frequent meditations he became more and more\nattracted towards the only lasting, imperishable Good which the soul\nwill one day find in its possession.  \"Made for God!\" he would say to\nhimself, \"my soul is borne with an impetuous impulse towards him; like\nthe  dove sent from the ark, it floats over the vast waters, and seeks\nin vain a resting place for its wearied wing; it must return again to\nthe ark.\"\n\nThe history of the great ones of the world produced a deep impression\non Louis' mind.  Emblazoned on the annals of the past he read the\nnames of great men who played their part for a brief hour on the stage\nof life.  They grasped for a moment the gilded bubble of wealth, of\nglory, and power; but scarcely had they raised the cup of joy to their\nlips when it was dashed from them by some stroke of misfortune or\ndeath.  The pageant of pride, the tinsel of glory, were not more\nlasting than the fantastic castles that are built in the luminous\nclouds that hang around the sunset.\n\nAt college Louis was called on with his companions to write a thesis\non the downfall of Marius.  Nothing more congenial to his convictions\nor more encouraging to the deep resolution growing in his heart could\nbe selected.  The picture he drew from the sad history of the\nconqueror of the Cimbri was long remembered among his school companions.\n\nMarius was seven times Consul of Rome; in the hapless day of his\nascendancy he threatened to stain three-fourths of the empire with\nhuman blood.  Blasted in his golden dream of ambition, driven into\nexile by victorious enemies, he was cast by a storm on the shores of\nAfrica, homeless and friendless; in cold and hunger he sought shelter\namidst the ruins of Carthage.  Carthage, whose fallen towers lay in\ncrumbling masses around him, was once the rival city of imperial Rome\nherself, and, under the able leadership of Hannibal, threatened to\nwrest from the queen of the Seven Hills the rule of the world.  Now\nits streets are covered with grass; the wild scream of the bird of\nsolitude and the moanings of the night-owl mingle with the sobs of\na fallen demigod who once made the earth shake under his tyranny.\n\nLouis read of the facts and sayings that doled out the sad tale of\ndisappointment felt by those who seemed to possess all that the\nwildest ambition could dream of.\n\n\"Yesterday the world was not large enough for him,\" said a sage on the\ndeath of Alexander the Great; \"to-day he is content with six feet\nof earth.\"\n\n\"What a miserable tomb is erected to the man that once had temples\nerected to his honor!\" sighed a philosopher on viewing a mean monument\non the sea-shore erected to the great Pompey, who could raise armies\nby stamping his feet.\n\n\"This is all the great Saladin brings to the grave,\" was announced by\na courier who carried the great ruler's winding-sheet before him to\nthe grave.\n\n\"Would I had been a poor lay brother,\" cried out the dying Philip II.\nof Spain, \"washing the plates in some obscure monastery, rather than\nhave borne the crown of Spain!\"\n\nThat which took most effect on the mind of Louis was the eloquence of\nIgnatius when he met the young Xavier in the streets of Paris.  \"And\nthen?\" asked by another saint of an ambitious youth, did not lose\nits force with the holy youth who found himself, by some freak of\nblind fortune heir to one of the millionaires of the French Capital.\n\nLouis, like St. Ignatius, would often stray to a shady corner of the\ngarden, and there, with eyes fixed on the blue vault of heaven, he\nwould sigh:  \"Oh! quam sordet tellus dum coelum aspicio\"--\"How vile\nis earth whilst I look on heaven!\"\n\nOne evening Louis had wandered into the garden to give full vent to\na flood of thought that urged him on to give immediate answer to the\ncalls of grace.  God was pleased to pour additional light on his soul;\nand grace urged the immediate execution of his generous resolutions.\nThat very morning the angry temper of his father and the bitter\nsarcasms against the faith Louis loved had embittered everything around\nhis home.  In tears, but with the fearless ABANDON of the true call,\nhe resolved to quit his father's home that very night, and to break\nhis purpose to his mother.  She was the only one he really loved,\nand in wounding her tender heart was the hardest part of the sacrifice.\nIn filial deference he prepared his mind to break the matter to his\nkind-hearted mother as gently as he could.  He would submit the\nresolution to our Blessed Lord in the most Holy Sacrament.\n\nWhilst going out to the venerable church of Notre Dame, a beautiful\ncaleche is at the door, and two young girls, dressed in extravagant\nrichness, are hurrying off to the fashionable rendezvous of the city;\nmildly refusing the invitation to accompany them, he hastens to\naccomplish the vows he has just taken before the altar.\n\nLeaving Louis to his devotions, we pause to catch a glimpse of the\nlovely girls who see happiness in another but less successful manner.\nThe reader must know those interesting children bursting like fragrant\nflowers into the bloom of their maidenhood; they are the sisters of\nLouis, Alvira and Aloysia.  Read those traits of innocence, of\ncharacter, of future promise; treasure the beautiful picture for future\nreference; they are the heroines of our story.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V.\n\nOur Heroines.\n\n\nAlvira was tall for her age; she had a graceful, majestic carriage,\nand, although eminently handsome, there was a something in the tone\nof her voice and in the impression of her features that reflected a\nmasculine firmness.  Accomplished and intelligent, gay in society,\nand affable to all, she was a general favorite amongst her school\ncompanions.  Yet she was at times of violent temper, and deep in the\nrecesses of her heart there lurked the germs of the strongest passions.\nThese passions, like lentils, grew with time and crept around that\nheart, until they concealed the noble trunk they clung to and made it\ntheir own.  Alvira was often crimsoned with the blush of passion; a\ngentle rebuke or a contradiction was sufficient to fire the hidden\nmine and send to the countenance the flash of haughty indignation.\nWhilst yet in her maidenhood she longed for distinction.  Fame leaped\nbefore her ardent imagination as a gilded bubble she loved to grasp.\nTales of knight-errantry and chivalry were always in her hands, and\nbore their noxious fruit in the wild dreams of ambition they fired in\nthe girl's mind.  Often, when alone with her sister, with book closed\nin her hand and eye fixed on some article of furniture, her thoughts\nwould be away winning crowns of fame on battle-fields of her own\ncreation, urging on gallant knights to deeds of bravery, or arranging\nwith humbled foes the terms of peace.  She would start from her reverie\nwith a sigh that told of the imprisonment of a bold, ambitious spirit\nthat felt itself destined to wield a needle rather than a sword.\n\nAloysia is a sweet, blooming girl of fourteen.  It often happens that\nfruits borne on the same stem are different in color and taste; so\nthese two sisters were different in personal appearance and character.\nNature seems to have presided in a special manner over the moulding\nof Aloysia's exquisite frame.  The symmetry of her person, hand and\nfoot of charming delicacy, azure eye and rosy cheek, garlanded with\nnature's golden tresses, and the sweet expression of innocence in her\nfeatures, would suggest her at once as a model for one of Raphael's\nMadonnas.  Her disposition, too, comported with the beauty of her\nperson.  She loved retirement, and read only books of the noblest\nsentiment.  The poets were familiar to her; she copied and committed\nto memory the passages of exquisite beauty.  There was one feature in\nher character which bore a marked influence on her future destinies:\nit was her love for her sister.\n\nWe do not believe at all times in the genuineness of brotherly or\nsisterly love.  Perhaps familiarity has deadened its keenness.  Like\nthe appreciation of the sunlight which rushes with thrilling force on\nthe victim of blindness, separation or misfortune may rouse the dormant\naffection and prove its nobility and its power; but in our experience\nmanifest fraternal charity is one of those things even the wise man\nknew to be rare under the sun.  Where we have been privileged to look\nin behind the veil of the family circle, we are more convinced than\never that fraternal affection an all the boasted nobility of sisterly\nlove dwindle down to a series of petty quarrels and jealousies as\npainful as they are unchristian and unbecoming.  The reserve, or rather\nthe hypocrisy of politeness, put on before strangers, is no criterion\nof the inward domestic life.  Some one has said of ladies, \"A point\nyielded or a pardon begged in public means so many hair-pullings\nbehind the scenes.\"  But this is too sweeping; there are noble, glorious\nexceptions in families where religion reigns, where fraternal charity\nfinds a congenial soil; for it blooms in the fragrance of the other\nvirtues, and is the first characteristic of a pious family.  The world\naround are told to look for this as a sign by which they are to\nrecognize the disciples of Him who loved so much.\n\nAloysia, in a true, genuine feeling of love, was bound in adamantine\nchains to her sister.  Time and fortune, that shatter all human\ninstitutions and prove human feelings, consolidated the union of their\nhearts and their destinies.  A stranger on stronger proof of the\ninfluence of sisterly affection could not be adduced; it dragged the\nbeautiful, blushing Aloysia from the sphere of girlhood, to follow\nin the track of hypocrisy and of bloodshed so desperately trodden by\nher brave sister.\n\nOur tale opens when the two girls had finished their education and\nwere living in luxury and enjoyment.  The days and hours passed merrily\nby.  They would read in the shade, play and sing on the harp, would\npaint or work at wool, and in the afternoon, when the burning sun had\nleft the world to the shade of evening, they would drive out in a\nmagnificent attelage to the fashionable rendezvous of Paris.\n\nDream too bright to last!  On the horizon is gathering the dark cloud\nthat will dim the sunlight of their bliss, and cause them, in the dark\nand trying hour of trouble, to look back with the sigh of regret over\nthe brilliant hours of youthful enjoyment.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VI.\n\nA Secret Revealed.\n\n\n  I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;\n  And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.\n  How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!\n  To die before the snow-drop came, and now the violet's here.\n\n  Oh! sweet is the new violet that comes beneath the skies\n  And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise;\n  And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow;\n  And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.\n\n                                 --Tennyson.\n\n\nIt was a bright, cheerful morning in June.  The sinking, feeble\nMadeleine had requested her domestics to carry her to the conservatory,\nthat she might gaze again on the flowers that were soon to blossom\non her grave.  Death had lingered in his approach.  The gay, the\nambitious, and healthy he had taken all too soon; but for Madeleine,\nWHO LONGED TO GO, he tarried.  Her little violets had already given\ntheir first fragrant kiss to breezes that passed with no mournful\ncadence through the cypresses of the lonely cemetery.  Crumbling in\nher hand a faded rose, she breathed the thought so beautifully versified\nin after-times by the immortal bard of Erin:\n\n         So soon may I follow\n           When friendships decay,\n         And from love's shining circle\n           The gems drop away.\n         When true hearts lie withered\n           And fond ones are flown,\n         Oh! who would inhabit\n           This bleak world alone?\n\nThe sentiment was prophetic: other flowers of affection will be withered\nby the vicissitudes of destiny; fond ones will flee, leaving the world\na wilderness for her last hours!\n\nIt often happens in the course of life that we are driven by some\ninexplicable fatality to suffer those very afflictions we dread the\nmost.  We are told of persons who trembled for a lifetime at the horrid\nanticipation of being one day mad; it was the shadow of the judgement\nthat was creeping on them, which cast them finally amongst the victims\nof the lunatic asylum.  The suicide is the prophet of his own doom;\nthe presentiment of death by drowning has but too often ended in a\nwatery grave.  Perhaps where the fibres of the heart are weakest, the\nstrain brought on them by excited fancy snaps them in the misfortune\nthat is dreaded; or perhaps some unseen spirit, charged with the decree\nof our individual sorrow, casts the dark shadow of his wing over our\nthoughts, and communicates the gloomy foreboding of a presentiment.\nThey dying mother had one of these heart-tearing presentiments, so\nfrequent and so mysterious in the history of human suffering.\n\nShe was guilty of a species of maternal idolatry; centered in her child\nLouis Marie as rays gathered up into a focus, were all her hopes, her\naspirations, her ideas of the future.  If she could be assured she\nwould live to see her son leading the armies of the empire, ruling\nin the cabinets of state or worshipped in the circles of the great\nand learned, Heaven itself could not build up a greater joy in the\nlimited horizon of her hopes; but an awful conviction crept over her\nthat some misfortune would tear from her the object of her love like\nthe fruit torn from the stem, like the young branch from the oak.  In\ndreams she saw him struggling in the torrent which bore him away, or\ndragged to the hills at the feet of a wild horse.  More than once she\nsaw him on board a Government vessel, sailing with the hapless children\nof guilt to the convict settlements of southern seas--not as a felon,\nbut an angel of light amongst the condemned.'\n\nWhilst Madeleine was sitting in the conservatory, musing over the gloomy\nanticipations her dreams had cast over her thoughts, Louis Marie came\ntowards her.  A beam of joy lit up her hectic cheek; she impressed\na kiss on the forehead of her darling son, and playfully reproved him\nfor the dreams that gave her so much trouble.\n\n\"Mother,\" we fancy we hear Louis reply, \"you would not surely give\nmuch credence to the imaginary evils of a dream.  You know nothing can\nhappen to us except by the arrangement of God; not even a hair can fall\nto the ground without his permission.  I remember in college I was\nvery much delighted with a thesis one of the fathers gave us on the\nProvidence of God; it was so strange and so consoling to think that\ngreat Being who created so many millions of worlds, and keeps them\nflying around him with immense velocity, could occupy himself with us\nhuman beings, who are no more than insects moving on this world, which\nis but a speck in the immensity of the universe.  But I know how it\nis--our souls are immortal, and hence we must soar higher than the\ncountless worlds, were they ten times as great.  Our blessed Lord, by\ncoming amongst us and dying to save those souls, showed us that he\nthought more of us than of the bird of the air or the lily of the\nfield, clothed in such charming magnificence.  Is it unreasonable that,\nsince he has given to each star a course, to each lily and each bird\na time and a clime, he should also determine for us the course we\nshould follow for his greater glory?  And what, mother, if some unseen,\ninvisible destiny should really call me away; if it were for the glory\nof God and the salvation of souls, would you not rejoice?\"\n\nMadeleine paused for a moment before venturing a reply.  She trembled;\na struggle between affection and duty passed within.  Pleased with the\nrich flow of virtuous sentiment that made her still more proud of her\nchild, she had caught the end of a golden thread and wished to unravel\nit further, but feared it would be snapped by some unpleasant discovery.\nFull of excitement, and her eyes filled with a penetrating, enquiring\ngaze upon Louis, she answered:\n\n\"Louis, I should be false to the lessons I have endeavored to teach\nyou in these last fleeting hours of my ill-spent life, were I not to\nrejoice in any destiny that would wrap up your future career in the\nglory of God; but I fear the enthusiasm of your young heart will\nmisguide you.  I know, from the serious tone of your voice and look\nin asking that question, you have been feeling your way to make some\ncrushing disclosure.  I saw you crying in the garden this afternoon,\nand for some time past I have noticed a cloud of anxiety hanging over\nyou.  I had determined the first moment we were alone to know the cause\nof this trouble; and I now conjure you, by the affection and duty which\nyou owe me as your mother, to let me share in your anxieties and in\nyour councils.\"\n\nLouis had really come to broach the terrible secret to his mother, but\nhe had not yet courage; he struggled manfully to suppress internal\nmotions that might at any moment, like sullen rivers, overflow and\nbetray their existence in a flood of tears.  Fearing to venture suddenly\non the subject that was fullest in his heart, he partly evaded his\nmother's energetic appeal, and made such a reply as would elicit from\nher quick perception the declaration that trembled on his lips.\n\n\"If war were declared with our frontier foes, and our beloved King\ncommanded the youth of the country to gird on the sword for our national\ndefence, you, mother, would help me to buckle on mine?\"\n\n\"Yes, Louis, I would give you proudly to the cause of France,\" continued\nMadeleine, feigning a patriotism she scarcely felt.  \"But, thanks be\nto God, I am not called on now to claim an honor that is at best a\nsacrifice and a calamity.\"\n\n\"But, mother, the war is declared, and I am to be a soldier in a sacred\ncause.\"\n\n\"How!\" cried Madeleine excitedly.  \"Are the followers of the Black\nPrince again attacking us?  The Turks seeking revenge for the defeat\nof Lepanto? or Christian Spain still intoxicated with its own dream\nof ambition?  Whence come the sound of arms, Louis, to fire thy young\nambition?  If I judge rightly, thy disposition leads thee more to\nthe cloister than to the battle-field.\"\n\n\"'Tis so,\" replied Louis, who had adroitly brought the conversation\nto the subject that occupied his thoughts, and to the announcement\nthat would ring with such thrill on his mother's ears.  \"And I am\ngoing to join a religious community immediately, to become a soldier\nin the great war of right against wrong--of this world against the\nnext.  To this war the trumpet-calls of grace have summoned me, and\nI come to ask the mother who would give me to the cause of my country\nto do the same for Almighty God.\"\n\nA step was heard outside.  Louis glided into the garden, and Madeleine\nwas again found by her husband buried in tears.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VII.\n\nTears on Earth, Joy in Heaven.\n\n\nMadeleine, with all the keenness of her maternal heart, had caught\nthe drift of Louis' mind, and felt the disclosure before it was made.\nA rough, rude remark from Cassier, and he left her to the silence and\nreflection she then vehemently desired.  Reflection, in bringing before\nher a beautiful but sad picture, crumbled before her mental vision the\ncastles that her affection and her hopes had built on the shadowy\nbasis of Louis' future temporal glory.  She felt, however, from the\ninspiration of faith a feeling of spiritual joy that he was called to\nthe higher destiny of a favorite of Heaven.  Had the fire of divine\nlove glowed more fervently in her heart, she would feel the joy of\necstasy, such as consoled the death-bled of the mothers of the saints\nwhen the revelation of the sanctity of their children was the last\ncrown of earthly joy.  Anticipating the privilege the fond maternal\nheart would fain claim even in the kingdom free from all care, Madeleine\noften found herself contemplating her son fighting the brave fight,\nwinning crown upon crown, and virtue flinging around him a shield more\nimpenetrable than the fabulous Aegis of pagan mythology.\n\nIn the flippant boastings of Christian mothers there are many who\npretend they have the fire of faith and divine love like the brave\nMachabean woman; but when the sore hour of real separation comes, the\nsoft, loving heart bends and weeps.  Nature, corrupt nature, resists\nthe arrangements of God, and nature triumphs in the maternal tie.  The\nspirit of Madeleine had made the sacrifice of her son, but the rude\nhand of nature swept the fibres of her heart and tore them asunder.\n\nNight has gathered around the house of Cassier.  Sleep has brought the\nsilence of the tomb on the inmates.  One alone is awake; gentle sobs\ntell of a heart struggling with its own desires, but a faint ray of\nmoonlight shows him seeking strength on his knees before a crucifix.\n\nGuide him, ye angels, in the sublime destiny to which Heaven calls!\nTreasure up those tears of affection; they are pearls for a crown in\neternity!  A long, farewell look at the old homestead, and Louis has\nfled.\n\nIn the night, when all were asleep, he stole down-stairs and into the\nsilent street.  The moon brightened the tears of his farewell; only\nhis guardian angel saw to register for his eternal crown, the inward\nstruggle in which he had trampled on every tie of affection and\npleasure.  Disappearing in the narrow streets, he disappears also from\nthe pages of our narrative until, in the extraordinary vicissitudes\nof time, he makes his appearance again in a scene both touching and\nedifying.\n\nThe morning dawn revealed the broken circle, the vacant chair in the\nfamily.  Cassier was confused.  Whilst others wept he moved about in\ndeep thought.  Stoic in his feelings and hardened in sympathies, he\nstill felt all the tender anxieties of an affectionate parent.  There\nare moments in the career of even the greatest sinners when sleeping\nconscience is roused to remorse.  The shock the old man received in\nthe loss of his amiable child opened his eyes to the unhappy state of\nhis own soul; every act of ridicule he cast on the religious tendencies\nof Louis became arrows of memory to sting him with regret.\n\nBut these were transient moments of a better light.  As meteors, darting\nacross the sky, illumine for a few seconds the dark vault of heaven,\nand in the sudden exit of their brilliant flash seem to leave greater\ndarkness in the night, thus the impulses of grace shot across the soul\nof Cassier; he struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly\nlapsed into the awful callousness which characterizes the relapses of\nconfirmed guilt; he pretended to smile at his weakness, and found a\nsorry relief in cursing and scoffing at everything the virtuous love.\n\nYet he offered immense rewards for information that would bring him in\npresence of the boy whose form he loved, but whose virtue he despised.\nLike the pagan persecutors of old, he vainly hoped, by fear or the\ntinsel of gold, to win back to the world and sin the magnanimous youth\nwho had broken through the stronger argument of a mother's tears.\nMessengers were dispatched in every direction; the police scoured the\nroads for miles outside the city; friends and acquaintances were warned\nnot to harbor the truant.\n\nA week passed, and no cheerful tidings came to lessen the gloom of\nbereavement.  That Providence which made Louis a vessel of election\nhad covered him with its protective shield, and bore him like a vessel\nunder propitious winds to the port of his destination.\n\nIn all the soft tenderness of girlhood the two sisters lamented their\nabsconding brother.  They, too, had been unkind to him.  The sweet,\npatient smile that ever met their taunts, the mild reproof when they\nconcealed his beads or prayer-book, his willingness to oblige on all\noccasions, were remembered with tears.  When sitting by the mother's\nbed, the conversation invariably turned on Louis.  In cruel fancy\nthey deepened the real sorrow of separation by casting imaginary\nmisfortunes on the track of the absent boy.  One would sigh with the\nominous PERHAPS.\n\n\"Poor Louis is now hungry!\"\n\n\"Perhaps he is now lying sick and footsore on the side of some highway,\nwithout a friend, without money.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he has fallen in with robbers and is stripped of the few\narticles of dress he took with him.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he is now sorry for leaving us,\" sighed the tender-hearted\nAloysia, \"and would give the world to kiss again his poor sick mamma!\"\n\nBut futile tears flowed with each surmise.  No welcome messenger\nreturned to bring tidings of the missing youth.\n\n'Tis thus we love virtue; we sigh over departed worth when its\nbrilliancy has faded from our sight.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VIII.\n\nMadeleine's Happy Death.\n\n\nTroubles, like migratory birds, never travel alone.  As heavier billows\ncling together and roll in rapid succession and in thundering force\non the rock-built barriers of nature, so the waves of trial and\nmisfortune break on frail humanity in crushing proximity.  The second\nand third billows of misfortune are fast undulating on the tide of time,\nand will sweep over the home of Cassier, leaving it a miserable wreck,\na theme for the sympathy and the moral of a historian's pen.\n\nThe weakened, consumptive frame of Madeleine did not long survive the\nblow that Louis had prepared for her--not, indeed, in the sense of a\nguilty and blood-stained hand, but with the merit of an Abraham who,\nat the command of Heaven, prepared a funeral pyre for his child.\nMadeleine could scarcely weep; the grief of nature was calmed by the\nimpulses of grace, and she felt in her heart a holy joy in the sublime\ndestinies of her son.  Could we, in the face of the holy teachings of\nthe Church, institute a comparison between the mother of the soldier\nand the mother of a priest?  Amidst sighs that were but the convulsive\nthroes of a heart's emotion, she breathed often and aloud the \"Deo\ngratias\" of the faithful soul.\n\nBut like certain forces in nature that require but the slightest shock\nto give them irresistible power, by which they burst through their\nconfining cells and set themselves free, the immortal spirit of\nMadeleine burst its prison cell and soared to its home beyond the skies.\n\nWe need not tarry over the painful, touching scene oft-told, and felt\nsooner or later in every home.  Like snow disappearing under the\nsunshine, the life of Madeleine was fast melting away.  At length, as\nif she knew when the absorbing heat would melt the last crystal of the\nvital principle, she summoned her family around her to wish them that\nlast thrilling farewell which is never erased from the tablet of memory.\nIn the farewell of the emigrant, torn by cruel fate from country and\nfriends, hope smiles in his tears; the fortune that drives away can\nbring back; but the farewell of death leaves no fissure in its cloud\nfor the gleam of hope--it is final, terrible, and, on this side the\ngrave, irrevocable.\n\nWith faltering voice she doled out the last terrible warning that speaks\nso eloquently from the bed of death.\n\nWhilst the aged priest recited the Litanies she raised her last, dying\nlooks towards heaven, and whispered loud enough to be heard, \"O Mary!\npray for my children.\"\n\nMadeleine was no more.  Her last sigh was a prayer that went like\nlightning to the throne of God from a repentant, reconciled spirit; at\nthe same moment her liberated soul had travelled the vast gulf between\ntime and eternity, and there, in the books held by the guardian angels\nof her children, she saw registered the answer to her prayer.\n\nMadeleine was laid in a marble tomb amongst the first occupants of\nPere la Chaise.  A small but artistic monument, still extant, and not\nfar from the famous tomb of Abelard and Eloise, would point out to the\ncurious or interested where sleeps among the great of the past the\nmuch-loved Madeleine Cassier.\n\n   \"God's peace be with her!\" they did say,\n   And laughed at their next breath.\n   O busy world! how poor is thy display\n   Of sympathy with death.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IX.\n\nOne Abyss Invokes Another.\n\n\nIn times gone by, in the so-called darkness of the Middle Ages, there\nwere certain countries in Europe that believed in the existence of a\nfiend or ghoul that inhabited lonely places and unfrequented woods,\nand tore to pieces the imprudent traveller that ventured on its path.\nThis fiend of the desert and lonely wood was at best but a fabrication\nof an excited fancy; it has long since passed away with the myths of\nthe past, and exists only in the nursery rhymes of our literature.\nYet in its place a malignant spirit of evil revels in the ruin of the\nhuman race; it delights in the crowd; it loves the gaslight, the\nlascivious song and wanton dance; it presides over our convivial\nbanquets with brow crowned with ivy and faded roses; whilst all the\nunholy delights of earth sacrifice to it, in return it scatters amongst\nits adorers all the ills and sorrows that flow from the curse of Eden,\nmaking a libation to the infernal gods of the honor, the fortune, and\nthe lives of men.  The ghoul or fiend of modern society is the demon\nof alcohol.\n\nHistory records a remarkable victim in the ill fated Cassier.  When\ngrief falls on the irreligious soul, it seeks relief in crime.  The\nshadow of death that fell on his family circle, and the flight of his\nson in daring forgetfulness of his parental authority, which he had\noverrated, broke the last link of Christian forbearance in his\nunbelieving heart; when wearied of blaspheming the providence of God,\nhe quaffed the fatal cup which hell gives as a balm to its\nsorrow-stricken votaries.\n\nA cloud of oblivion must hide from the tender gaze of the young and the\ninnocent the harrowing scenes that brought misery on his home, ruin on\nhis financial condition, and a deeper hue to the moral depravity of\nhis blighted character.\n\nOne look of sympathy at our young heroines, and we will pass on to the\nthrilling course of events.\n\nLike beautiful yachts on a stormy lake, without pilot, without hands\nto steady the white sail to catch the favorable wind, Alvira and Aloysia\nwere tossed on a sea of trial which cast a baneful shadow over their\nfuture destinies.  Tears had cast the halo of their own peculiar beauty\nover their delicate features; mourning and sombre costume wrapt around\nthem the gravity of sorrow and the adulation of a universal sympathy,\npretended or real, supplied the attentions that flattered and pleased\nwhen they led the giddy world of fashion.  The silence of grief hung\naround the magnificent saloons, once so gay; the wardrobe that contained\nthe costly apparel, the casket that treasured the pearls of Ceylon and\ngems of Golconda, were all closed and neglected.  The treatment of\ntheir father was an agony of domestic trouble, in which they were tried\nas in a furnace.\n\nA few weeks, however, and the darkest hour of the storm had passed.\nMoments of relaxation brought beams of sunlight through the dissolving\nbeams of sunlight through the dissolving clouds; drives, walks, and\neven visits were gradually resumed.\n\nA fit of illness brought Cassier to his senses.  A forced abstinence\nfor a few weeks saved him from the last and most terrible lot of\nconfirmed drunkenness; but ruin was written with his own hand on the\nfirm that made him wealthy.  Quick-footed rumor, that hates the\nwell-being of man, was abroad at its deadly work; public confidence in\nthe bank began to wane, and each depositor lent the weight of his\nindividual interest to accelerate the financial crash.  The stone set in\nmotion down the mountain assumes a force that no power could stay; on it\nwill go until it rests in the plain  From the eminence of his boasted\nwealth the usurer found this turn come to whirl around on the wheel of\nfortune and yield to some other mortal, who is the toy of fortune, to\ngrasp for a moment the golden key of avarice and ambition.\n\nAt length the crash has come.  One of the largest depositors sends\nnotice that in a week he will withdraw his funds.\n\nCassier saw ruin staring him in the face; when this sum was paid he\nwould be a pauper.  He would not dig, and in the pride of his heart\nhe would not beg.  Conscience, long seared in the path of impiety, has\nno voice to warn, no staff to strike.  Cassier, wise in his generation\nof dishonesty, knows what he will do, and nerves himself for a\ndesperate undertaking which leads us deeper and deeper into the history\nof crime, into the abysses of iniquity which invoke each other.\n\nIn a few days Paris is startled.  Cassier has fled, and robbed his\ncreditors of a million francs.\n\n\n\n\nChapter X.\n\nOn the Trail.\n\n\nEvening has fallen over the city, and the busy turmoil of the streets\nhad ceased; the laborer had repaired to his family, the wealthy had\ngone to their suburban villas, and licentious youth had sought the\namusements over which darkness draws its veil.  Politicians,\nnewsmongers, and travellers made the cafe salons ring with their\nanimated discussions.  The policy of the Prime Minister, the\nprobabilities of war, the royal sports of Versailles, and daring deeds\nof crime gathered from the police reports were inexhaustive topics for\ndebate.\n\nIn one of the popular cafes there was a small gathering of men\nthreatening vengeance on the delinquent Cassier; they had more or less\nsuffered from his robbery, and they listened with avidity to every\nrumor that might lead to the probability of his capture.  Amongst them\nthere was an aged man of grayish beard, who was particularly loud and\nzealous in his condemnation of the dishonest banker.  He railed against\nthe Government, which, he said, was priest-ridden under the whip of\nMazarin; the imbecility of the police; and the apathy of the citizens,\nwho bore so peaceably such glaring acts of injustice and imposition.\nHe poured out a volume of calumny against the priesthood, and blasphemed\nso as to cast a chill of terror through his less impious hearers.\n\nHe was suddenly stopped in his harangue by the entrance of a stranger\nin the coffee-room.  He was a tall, thin man, wrapped in an over-cloak;\nhe paced majestically across the room, and took a seat opposite the\nold man, who had suddenly become silent and was busily occupied reading\nthe criminal bulletin.  Over the edges of his paper the old man took\na furtive glance at the stranger; their eyes met; a recognition\nfollowed, but as silent and as deep as with the criminal and the Masonic\njudge.\n\nThe old man rang the bell, and called for writing materials.  He hastily\nscribbled a few words, closed, sealed the letter, then bade the waiter\ntake it to his eldest son, who had retired to his apartments.  He\nimmediately took his hat and went out.\n\n\"Who is that old man?\" asked the tall stranger, rising and advancing\nexcitedly towards the waiter.\n\n\"That's Senor Pereira from Cadiz,\" retorted the waiter.\n\n\"Senor Pereira from Cadiz!\" repeated the stranger.  \"No,\" he continued\nemphatically; \"he is Senor Cassier from Paris.\"\n\n\"Cassier!\" was muttered by the astounded debaters who had listened to\nthe vituperative philippics of the Portuguese merchant.\n\n\"Cassier!\" was echoed from the furthest end of the salon, where some\nquiet and peaceful citizens were sipping their coffee and rum apart\nfrom the stormy politics of the centre-table.\n\nWhilst an animated conversation was carried on two young lads came\nrunning down-stairs and rushed into the street through the front door.\n\n\"Who are those young men?\" asked again the stranger of the waiter.\n\n\"They are the sons of Senor Pereira,\" was the answer.\n\n\"The sons of Pereira!  They are the daughters of Cassier!\" said the\nstranger in a loud voice, who had now become the hero of the room and\nhad penetrated a deep and clever plot.\n\nHe ran to the street, but the fugitives had disappeared in the darkness;\ntheir gentle tread was not heard on the pavement, and no observer was\nnear to indicate the course they had taken.  The whole scheme of\nCassier's bold disguise flashed with unerring conviction on the\nstranger's mind--the voice, the eye, the gait were Cassier's.  He was\nfamiliar with the family, and in the hurried glance he got of the\nyouths rushing by the saloon door he thought he recognized the contour\nof Alvira's beautiful face.  He hastened to communicate his startling\ndiscovery to the Superintendent of the Police, and the city was once\nmore in a state of excitement.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XI.\n\nThe Flight.\n\n\nThe sensation caused by the startling failure and embezzlement of the\nwealthy banker had scarcely subsided when the city rang with the news\nof his clever disguise and daring escape.  Angry Justice, foiled in her\nrevenge, lashed herself to rage, and moaned her defeat like the forest\nqueen robbed of her young.  The Government feared the popular cry,\nand proved its zeal by offering immense rewards for the arrest of the\ndelinquent banker.  The country around the city was guarded, every\nsuspicious vehicle examined, and strangers ran the risk of being mobbed\nbefore they could prove their identity.  False rumors now and then ran\nthrough the city, raising and quelling the passions like a tide.  At\none time the culprit is caught and safely lodged in the Bastile; at\nanother he is as free as the deer on the plains.  Cassier did escape,\nbut some incidents of the chase were perilous and exciting.\n\nTravelling in those days was slow and difficult.  The giant steam-engines\nthat now sweep over hills and torrents with a speed that rivals the\nswoop of the sea-bird were unknown.  The rickety old diligence or\nstage-coach was only found on the principal thoroughfares between the\nlarge cities.\n\nCassier knew these roads would be the first taken in pursuit, and\ncarefully avoided them.  Seeking a destination where the chances of\ndetection would be lessened, he was attracted towards Geneva, already\nfamous as the hot-bed of secret societies and the rallying-point of\ninfidelity.  He would reach it by a circuitous route.  From Paris to\nthe historic old capital of Switzerland, in the centre of mountains\nand the heart of Europe, was a herculean journey for the fugitives.\n\nOn they went for two and three days' journey, stopping at humble inns\non the roadside where the news of the capital had not reached.  Time\ninured them to danger and calmed the fever of anxiety consequent upon\ntheir hurried and hazardous flight.\n\nBut the avenging law had followed in close pursuit.  The officers of the\nGovernment were directed from village to village; they found themselves\non the track of an old man and two beardless youths in naval cadet\ncostume.  The chase became exciting.  Wealth and fame awaited their\ncapture.\n\nOne evening, in the glow of a magnificent sunset, Cassier and his\ndaughters were wending their way along one of the picturesque roads\nof the Cote d'Or.  They were on the slope of a shady mountain, and\nthrough a vista of green foliage they could see the road they had\npassed for miles in the distance.  The silence of the mountainside\nwas unbroken, save by the music of wild birds and the roar of a torrent\nthat leaped through the moss-covered rocks towards the valley.  The\nwild flowers gave aromatic sweetness to the mountain-breeze, and the\norb of day, slowly sinking in a bank of luminous crimson clouds in the\ndistant horizon, made the scene all that could be painted by the most\nbrilliant fancy.  Our young heroines gave frequent expression to their\ndelight, but their aged sire was silent and watchful.  He frequently\ntook long and piercing looks on the road he had passed.  Anxiety\nmantled on his wrinkled brow; a foreboding of danger cast its prophetic\ngloom over his spirits.\n\nSuddenly he turned from a long, fixed look through the trees, and with\na thrill of alarm cried out:  \"They are coming!\"\n\nFor a moment he gave the jaded horses the whip.  He refused any further\ninformation to the terrified girls; he bit his lip, drew his sword\nclose to him, and prepared for a struggle; for he had resolved to die\nrather than go back a prisoner to Paris.\n\nThe pursuers were each moment gaining ground; the costume of the\ngendarmes was discernible as they galloped in a cloud of dust along\nthe plain.  The hill was long and heavy before the wearied horses of\nCassier.  He saw flight was vain; stratagem must come to his aid in\nthe emergency.\n\nAt this moment he came to a turn in the mountain road where the trees\nwere thicker and the shade more dense.  Like a skilful general in the\ncritical moment when victory and defeat hang, as it were, on the cast\nof a die, he conceived instantaneously the plan of a desperate\nexpedient.  He drew up his horses and bade his trembling children await\nhis return.\n\nReturning a few paces he secreted himself behind an oak-tree and calmly\nawaited the arrival of the Government officers.\n\nSoon the clatter of the galloping horses was heard in the distance.\nThe wild scream of startled birds resounded through the groves; the\nsun seemed to glow in a deeper crimson, the breezes sighed a mournful\ncadence through the waving foliage.  On the troopers came up the side\nof the hill.  Cassier had counted them--they are but two; despair has\nlent courage to his heart, and will give a giant stroke to his aged\narm.\n\nAt the sight of the suspected caleche drawn up in the shady road, one\nof the pursuing officers gave spurs to his horse, and flew out before\nhis companion to seize the prey--to be the first captor of the\ndelinquent fugitive.  Fatal indiscretion!  Plunging along at desperate\nspeed, and dreaming of gold and renown, the burnished sword of Cassier\ntook his horse on the flank.  Its rider fell to the earth; before he\nhad seen his enemy, the sword of Cassier had pierced his heart.\n\nA scream from the carriage announced that the scene had been witnessed\nby tender girls who had not been accustomed to deeds of violence and\nbloodshed.  But the combat has now but commenced.  The battle of the\nHoratii and Curatii, on which an empire depended, was not more fierce.\n\nThe second gendarme saw the fate of his companion; he reined his horse,\ndismounted, and came with drawn sword to meet the Parisian banker, who\nhad now become a mountain bandit.\n\nWhen Greek met Greek in the days of old, the earth trembled.  Never\nwas more equal or deadly fight.  Cassier had learned the sword exercise\nin his youth as a useful art; the police officer was a swordsman from\nprofession.  For a moment sparks flew from the whirling, burnished\nblades.  The silence of deep resolve wrapt the features of the\ncombatant in fierce rigidity.  Again and again they struck and parried,\nstruck and parried, until wearied nature gave feeble response to the\nmaddened soul.  The aged Cassier felt, from his age and fatigue, about\nto succumb; gathering all his strength for a desperate effort, he\nthrew his weight into a well-measured shoulder stroke, when, lo! his\nantagonist's sword flew in pieces--the brave gendarme fell weltering\nin the blood of his murdered companion.\n\nAll is still again.  The sun has gone down in murky splendor, the birds\nare silent, and the solitude of the wild mountain-pass is like the\nnight, that is darker after the flash of the meteor.  The hapless but\nbrave soldiers of justice lie in their armor on the field of battle;\nthe fresh blood gurgles from the gaping wounds, and the madness of\ndefeat is fiercely stamped on their bronzed features; one holds in\ndeath-grasp the unsheathed sword he had not time to wield, the other\nsill stares with open eye on the broken blade that proved his ruin.\n\nA heavy splash and a crimson streak in the foam announce that the\ntorrent has become the grave of the fallen police; the road, steeped\nwith blood, is covered with fresh earth; the scene that witnessed the\ntragedy is fair and beautiful as before.  Cassier, reassured, with\nbold step and pulse of pride, turns towards his conveyance to resume\nhis journey.\n\nAloysia was just recovering from a fainting fit, and her sister had\nlabored to restore her during the exciting moments of the deadly strife\nthat had just been concluded.  Neither of them saw the perilous\nsituation of their father, and were thus saved the shock the extremity\nof his peril was calculated to have produced.\n\nA few days found them safely across the frontiers of France, threading\nthe passes of the Alps, and away from the grasp of justice, that pursued\nthem in vain.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XII.\n\nGeneva.\n\n\nAs the wearied stag that has eluded the chasing dogs rests in safety\nin the covert of its native mountains, our fugitives at length breathed\nfreely in the beautiful city of Geneva.  Wild and grand as had been\nthe scenery they passed through, the excitement of the flight and the\nfear of seizure had, to them, robbed nature of her charms.  Ever and\nanon, indeed, they had looked around with searching eyes, but not to\ngaze in rapture on the snow-capped mountains, the green valleys, and\ncrystal streams; it was rather to peer along the road they had passed,\nto see if any speck on the horizon would indicate the pursuing horses\nof the gendarmes.  But now for the first time the magnificence of the\nAlpine scenery and the charm of the lovely queen of the Swiss valleys\nburst on their view.  Mont Blanc, already seen from the north, seemed\nto lift its snowy drapery higher into the blue sky, and stood out more\nmajestic in its crystallized peaks when seen from the bridges of the\nRhone.  Another firmament was seen through the clear azure water of\nthe beautiful lake; and although the air was cold and fresh in the icy\nchill of the mountains, and nature stripped of her green, yet our\nyoung heroines were charmed with their first view of the city, and\nrejoiced in the prospect of a long sojourn.\n\nThere are few spots in the world where the lovers of the sublimities\nof nature can drink in such visual feasts as at Geneva.  Since railways\nhave shortened distance and cut through mountains, there is no more\nfashionable rendezvous for the world of art than the suburbs of the\nSwiss capital.  During the summer months every little nook on the\nsurrounding mountain-sides is occupied by artists of every sex and of\nevery nation.  What juvenile album is complete without a sketch of\nMont Blanc?  The old mountain stands out in its eternal majesty as a\nvision of awful beauty for old and young; and many a noble soul has\nbeen borne from the contemplation of the grandeur of nature to study\nin awe the greatness of Him \"who makes mountains his footstools.\"  The\nartificial beauties of the modern Geneva far surpass the old; yet those\nmountains, those peaks and snows and lakes, were always there.  It was\nknown to Constantine, and crept into importance and worth in proportion\nas science and art were developed in the civilization of Europe.\n\nAt the time we write the beautiful Swiss capital was one of the\nprincipal seats of learning in Europe.  But, alas! its literature was\nblasted by the false principles of the Reformation.  Like marble\ncenotaphs that have corruption within, Geneva, clothed with all the\nbeauties of nature and art, was rotten to the core in her moral and\nreligious character.  She became the mother of heresiarchs, the theatre\nof infidelity, and by her press and preaching scattered far and wide\nthe wildest theories of deism and unbelief.  All the secret societies\nof the world were represented in her lodges, and within her walls,\nwere gathered men of desparate and socialistic politics who had sworn\nto overturn as far as they could the authority of society, to despise\nthe rights of property, and to trample on the laws of order.  There\nwas no city in the world guilty of more blasphemy than this beautiful\nGeneva; and even to this day, as the sins of fathers descend to their\nchildren, the teachings of Calvin, of Bayle, and of Servetus hang like\na chronic curse over the city to warp every noble feeling of Christian\nvirtue.\n\nAmongst the leaders of the secret societies, amongst the socialists\nwho plot the ruin of their fellow-citizens, and amongst the infidels\nwho blasphemously ridicule the mysteries of Christianity, we must now\nseek the unfortunate Cassier, who has arrived in Geneva.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIII.\n\nThe Secret Societies.\n\n\nTo outsiders Masonry is a mystery.  When Masons speak or write of\nthemselves they give the world to understand the are but a harmless\nunion for mutual benefit, and for the promotion of works of benevolence.\nThat such is the belief of many individuals in the lower grades of\nMasonry, and even of some lodges amongst the thousands scattered over\nthe face of the earth, we have no doubt; but that charity in its varied\nbranches has been either the teaching or the fact amongst the great\nbulk of Freemasons during the last two hundred years we unhesitatingly\ndeny.\n\nIn the ceremony of making a master-mason, and in a dark room, with a\ncoffin in the centre covered with a pall, the brethren standing around\nin attitudes denoting grief and sorrow, the mysterious official who\nhas the privilege of three stars before his name gives the aspirant\nthis interesting history of the origin and aim of his office.\n\n\"Over the workmen who were building the temple erected by Solomon's\norders there presided Adoniram.  There were about 3,000 workmen.  That\neach one might receive his due, Adoniram divided them into three\nclasses--apprentices, fellow-craftsmen, and masters.  He entrusted\neach class with a word, signs, and a grip by which they might be\nrecognized.  Each class was to preserve the greatest secrecy as to\nthese signs and words.  Three of the fellow-crafts, wishing to know\nthe word of the master, and by that means obtain his salary, hid\nthemselves in the temple, and each posted himself at a different gate.\nAt the usual time when Adoniram came to shut the gates of the temple,\nthe first of the three fellow-crafts met him, and demanded the word\nof the masters.  Adoniram refused to give it, and received a violent\nblow with a stick on the head.  He flies to another gate, is met,\nchallenged, and treated in a similar manner by the second.  Flying to\nthe third door, he is killed by the fellow-craft posted there on his\nrefusing to betray the word.  His assassins bury him under a heap of\nruins, and mark the spot with a branch of acacia.\n\n\"Adoniram's absence gives great uneasiness to Solomon and the masters.\nHe is sought for everywhere; at length one of the masters discovers\na corpse, ad, taking it by the finger, the finger parts from the hand;\nhe takes it by the wrist, and it parts from the arm; when the master\nin astonishment, cries out 'Mac Benac,' which the craft interprets by\nthe words, 'The flesh parts from the bones.'\"\n\nThe history finished, the adept is informed that the object of the\ndegree which he has just received is to recover the word lost by the\ndeath of Adoniram, and to revenge this martyr of the Masonic secrecy.\n\nThousands of years have rolled over since the alleged death of the\nclerk of works at Solomon's temple, and if the streams of human blood\nthat his would-be avengers have caused to flow have not satiated this\nblood-thirsty shade, those that Masons, Communists, Internationals,\nand other secret societies will yet cause to flow in the cities of\nEurope will surely avenge the ill fated Adoniram.\n\nIt is also asserted by some Masons of strong powers of imagination\nthat they take their origin from the Eleusinian Mysteries.  These were\npagan orgies attached to some Grecian temples.  Surrounded by mysterious\nceremonies and symbols, and supported by every mythical and allegorical\nillusion that could inspire awe or confidence, these mysteries were\nvery popular amongst the Greeks.\n\n\"The mysteries of Eleusis,\" says the profound German mythologist,\nCreuzer, \"did not only teach resignation, but, as we see by the verses\nof Homer to Ceres sung on those occasions, they afforded consoling\npromises of a better futurity.  'Happy is the mortal,' it is said there,\n'who hath been able to contemplate these grand scenes!  But he who\nhath not taken part in these holy ceremonies is fore ever deprived of\na like lot, even when death has drawn him down into its gloomy abodes.'\"\n\nHarmless and absurd as these mysteries were in the commencement, they\nafterwards lapsed into all the immoralities of pagan worship.  But\nto give such a remote, and even such a noble, origin to the frivolous\ndeism of modern Masonry is about as absurd as to say that men were\nat one time all monkeys.\n\nThe truth is, Freemasonry was never heard of until the latter part of\nthe Middle Ages.  It found its infancy among the works of the great\ncathedral of Strasburg.  Erwin of Steinbach, the leading architect\nemployed in the erection of this beautiful and stupendous work of\narchitectural beauty, called around him other noted men from the\ndifferent cities of Germany, Switzerland, and France; he formed the\nfirst lodge.  The members became deputies for the formation of lodges\nin other cities, and thus in 1459 the heads of these lodges assembled\nat Ratisbon, and drew up their Act of Incorporation, which instituted\nin perpetuity the lodge of Strasburg as the chief lodge, and its\npresident as the Grand Master of the Freemasons of Germany.\n\nThe masters, journeymen, and apprentices formed a corporation having\nspecial jurisdiction in different localities.  In order not to be\nconfounded with the vulgar mechanics who could only use the hammer\nand the trowel, the Freemasons invented signs of mutual recognition\nand certain ceremonies of initiation.  A traditionary secret was handed\ndown, revealed to the initiated, and that only according to the degrees\nthey had attained.  They adopted for symbols the square, the level,\nthe compass, and the hammer.  In some lodges and in higher grades\n(for they differ almost in every nation) we find the Bible, compass,\nand square only.  But the Bible given to the aspirant he is to\nunderstand he is to acknowledge no other law but that of Adam--the\nlaw which Almighty god had engraved on his heart, and which is called\nthe law of nature (thereby rejecting the laws of the Church and\nsociety).  The compass recalls to his mind that God is the central\npoint of everything, from which everything is equally distant, and to\nwhich everything is equally near.  By the square he is to learn that\nGod made everything equal.  The drift of these symbolic explanations\nis obvious.\n\nIn the ceremonies of initiation into the various degrees everything\nwas devised that could strike the imagination, awaken curiosity, or\nexcite terror.  The awful oath that has been administered in some\nContinental lodges would send a thrill of horror through every\nright-minded person, whilst the lugubrious ceremonies the aspirant has\nto pass elicit a smile--such, for instance, of leading the young Mason\nwith bandaged eyes around the inner temple, and in the higher grades\npresenting him with a dagger, which he is to plunge into a manikin\nstuffed with bladders full of blood, and declare that thus he will be\navenged of the death of Adoniram!  Then he is instructed in the code\nof secret signals by which he can recognize a brother on the street,\non the bench, or on the field of battle.  Carousing till midnight is\na befitting finale to the proceedings of the lodge.\n\nThe doctrines or religious code of the Masons are, as their symbols\nindicate, deistic and anti-Christian.  They openly shake off the\ncontrol of all religion, and pretend to be in possession of a secret\nto make men better and happier than Christ, his apostles, and his\nChurch have made them or can make them.  \"The pretension,\" says\nProfessor Robertson, \"is monstrous!\"\n\nHow is this exoteric teaching consistent with the full and final\nrevelation of divine truths?  If in the deep midnight of heathenism\nthe sage had been justified in seeking in the mysteries of Eleusis\nfor a keener apprehension of the truths of primitive religion, how\ndoes this justify the Mason, in the midday effulgence of Christianity,\nin telling mankind he has a wonderful secret for advancing them in\nvirtue and happiness--a secret unknown to the incarnate God, and to\nthe Church with which he has promised the Paraclete should abide for\never?  And even the Protestant, who rejects the teaching of that\nunerring Church, if he admits Christianity to be a final revelation,\nmust scout the pretensions of a society that claims the possession\nof moral truths unknown to the Christian religion.\n\nWhatever may have been the original cast of the religious views of\nthe Masonic order, it is certain in its development it has become\nimpious and blaspheming.  In the latter part of the seventeenth century\nthe Masonic lodges were the hot-beds of sedition and revolution; and\nlong before the popes from their high watch-tower of the Vatican had\nhurled on these secret gatherings the anathema of condemnation, they\nwere interdicted in England by the Government of Queen Elizabeth;\nthey were checked in France by Louis XV. (1729); they were prescribed\nin Holland in 1735, and successively in Flanders, in Sweden, in Poland,\nin Spain, in Portugal, in Hungary, and in Switzerland.  In Vienna, in\n1743, a lodge was burst into by soldiers.  The Freemasons had to give\nup their swords and were conducted to prison; but as there were\npersonages of high rank among them, they were let free on parole and\ntheir assemblies finally prohibited.  These facts prove there was\nsomething more than mutual benefit associations in Masonry.  \"When we\nconsider,\" says M. Picot, \"that Freemasonry was born with irreligion;\nthat it grew up with it; that it has kept pace with its progress; that\nit has never pleased any men but those who were impious or indifferent\nabout religion; and that it has always been regarded with disfavor\nby zealous Catholics, we can only regard it as an institution bad in\nitself and dangerous in its effects.\"\n\nRobinson of Edinburgh, who was a Protestant and at on time a Mason\nhimself, says: \"I believe no ordinary brother will say that the\noccupations of the lodges are anything better than frivolous, very\nfrivolous indeed.  The distribution of charity needs to be no secret,\nand it is but a small part of the employment of the meeting.  Mere\nfrivolity can never occupy men come to age, and accordingly we see in\nevery part of Europe where Freemasonry has been established the lodges\nhave become seed-beds of public mischief.\"\n\nThis was particularly true of the lodges of the central cities of\nEurope in the latter part of the seventeenth century.  They were not\nonly politically obnoxious to governments, but they became the agents\nand supporters of all the heretical theories of the day, and their evil\neffects were felt in the domestic circle.  Like animals that hate the\nlight and crawl out from their hiding-places when the world is abandoned\nby man, the members of those impious gatherings passed their nights in\nmysterious conclave.  Fancy can paint the scene:  weak-minded men of\nevery shade of unbelief, men of dishonest and immoral sentiments, men\nwho, if justice had her due, should have swung on the gallows or eked\nout a miserable existence in some criminal's cell, joined in league\nto trample on the laws and constitution of order, and, in the awful\ncallousness of intoxication, uttering every blasphemous and improper\nthought the evil one could suggest.  What must have been the character\nof the homes that received such men after their midnight revels?  Many\na happy household has been turned into grief through their demoralizing\ninfluence; mothers, wives, and daughters have often, in the lonely\nhours of midnight, sat up with a scanty light and a dying fire awaiting\nthe late return of a son, a husband, or a brother; with many a sigh\nthey would trace the ruin of their domestic felicity and the wreck of\ntheir family to some lodge of the secret societies.\n\nBefore appealing to facts and bringing the reader to a scene of domestic\nmisery caused by those societies, we will conclude these remarks by\nquoting one or two verses from a parody on a very popular American\nsong.  We believe the lines representing the poor little child calling\nin the middle of the night, in the cold and wet, at the Masonic lodge\nfor its father, to be as truthful in the realities of domestic\nsuffering as they are beautiful and touching in poetic sentiment:\n\n  \"Father, dear father, stop home with us pray\n    You never stop home with us now;\n  'Tis always the 'lodge' or 'lodge business,' you say,\n    That will not home pleasures allow.\n  Poor mother says benevolence is all very well,\n    And your efforts would yield her delight,\n  If they did not take up so much of your time,\n    And keep you from home every night.\n\n  \"Father, dear father, stop home with us pray!\n    Poor mother's deserted, she said,\n  And she wept o'er your absence one night, till away\n    From our home to your lodge-room I sped.\n  A man with a  red collar came out and smiled,\n    And patted my cheeks, cold and blue,\n  And I told him I was a good Templar's child,\n    And was waiting, dear father, for you.\n\n  \"Father, dear father, come home with me now;\n    You left us before half-past seven.\n  Don't say you'll come soon, with a frown on your brow;\n    'Twill soon, father dear, be eleven.\n  Your supper is cold, for the fire is quite dead,\n    And mother to bed has gone, too;\n  And these were the very last words that she said;\n    'I hate those Freemasons, I do!'\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIV.\n\nThe Freemason's Home.\n\n\nLate on a dark night in the commencement of November, wind and rain\nblowing with violence from the mountains, and the streets of Geneva\nabandoned, we find our young heroines sitting in a comfortable room.\nThey are lounging on easy-chairs before a warm fire; the eldest is\nreading, and the youngest, although dressed in the pretty uniform\nof a naval cadet, is working at embroidery with colored wools.\n\nAlvira and Aloysia, at the command of their father, have still preserved\ntheir disguise, at first irksome to their habits and delicacy of\nmaidenhood; but necessity and fear toned down their objection, and\nthey gradually accustomed themselves to the change.  In girlish\nsimplicity they were pleased with the novelty of their position.  They\nknew each other as Charles and Henry, and by these names we must now\ncall them.\n\nThe old clock of the church on the hill sent the mournful tones of the\neleventh hour over the silent city.  Charles counted the solemn booms\nof the church bell, and then, as if resuming the conversation with\nHenry:  \"Eleven o'clock, and father not come home yet!  I am sure I\ndon't know what keeps father out every night so late; if poor mother\nwere alive, she would never stand this.\"\n\n\"But perhaps pa may have important business and can't come home,\" we\nhear the amiable Henry suggesting.\n\n\"Business!  Nothing of the kind.  He has got in amongst some old fools\nwho pretend to have more knowledge than their grandfathers, and are\ndeceiving old women of both sexes to such a degree that they actually\nfancy they are inspired to make new Bibles, new commandments, and new\nchurches.\"\n\n\"But father might be trying to put them right,\" replied Henry softly,\n\"and perhaps feels as you do.  How sad to see them going astray!\"\n\n\"No,\" answered the other with greater animation, \"he is as bad as any\nof them.  You remember long ago how he used to make poor mother cry\nwhen speaking of the great mystery of Redemption; he called it the\ngreatest swindle the world ever saw.  You remember what blasphemous\nand insulting language he addressed to the Sisters of St. Vincent when\nthey asked for alms in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and you know how\nhe is always reading the most impious works.\n\n\"He is now shut up in one of those mysterious rooms called Freemason\nlodges, where, if report be true, the enemies of the Church and state\nplot the ruin of mankind.  Henry, he is not only an infidel and a\nFreemason, but he is unkind to us.\"\n\nSaying these last words, Charles rose and paced up and down the room,\nas if full of passion.\n\nFaith, like anemones that flourish in the depths of the ocean when the\nsurface is tossed with storm, was concealed in the heart of Charles,\nand inspired those feelings of holy indignation which live in secret\nin the heart even when passion rages in triumph without.\n\nHenry ventured a reply, but the excited manner of her sister checked\nher, and, burying her face in her hands, she remained in silence.\nWell she knew Charles was right, and in the deep sympathy of her\ninnocent, loving heart her feelings crept into prayer for her erring\nparent, and silent tears suffused her eyes.\n\nWhilst the two girls were thus engaged--the one pacing the room and\nbiting her lips with annoyance, the other wrapt in prayer and tears--the\nstep of Cassier was heard on the stairs.\n\nIt was unfortunate for Charles.  He had given loose rein to his passion,\nand it was at this moment beyond control.  The scene reminds us of a\npoor wife, the hapless victim of a drunkard's home, drawing on herself\nbrutal treatment, when, in the lonely hours of midnight and in the\npent-up feelings of a breaking heart, she would incautiously reprove\nthe maddened retch who is reeling home to her under the fumes of\nintoxication; thus Charles gave vent to feelings she had long nursed\nin her bosom, and spoke in disrespectful language of reproof to her\nintoxicated father.\n\nCassier had come from the carousals of the lodge.  The fumes of the\nold wines had reached his brain; the fearless and unexpected reproof\nof Charles startled him.  In an instant the demon of intemperance\nreigned in his heart; without waiting to answer, he approached the\ngirl, gave her a severe slap on the face, and ordered her to her\napartments.\n\nCharles and Henry retired to a sleepless couch, and their pillow was\nmoistened with many bitter tears before the dawn of the morning.\n\nIn a small spark commences the conflagration that destroys cities;\nthe broad river that flows with irresistible majesty through our plains\ncommences in a rivulet leaping and sparkling on the green hill-side;\nthe almighty avalanche that sweeps with the roar of thunder through\nthe Alpine ravines commences in a handful of loosened snow.  Thus to\na thought, a guilty desire uncontrolled, may be traced the greatest\nmoral catastrophes.\n\nA cloud passed over the thoughts of Charles.  From the momentous evening\nshe received the rebuke of her father, her heart became the battle-field\nof contending emotions.  She brooded in silence over imaginary wrongs,\nand thus gave to a latent passion the first impulse that led to\ndisastrous consequences.  Diseased fancy lent a charm to thoughts long\nforgotten, and recalled the pictures of pride and ambition that had\nso often gilded the horizon of her young hopes.  To be free and have\nwealth, she thought, was worth swimming across a river of blood to\ngain.\n\nA temptation seized the thoughts of Charles.  It clung to her like\nthe bloodsucker drawing fresh streams from young veins.  Notwithstanding\nher efforts to shake off the terrible temptation, and because she did\nnot seek aid in the sacraments of the Church, it lived and haunted\nher in spite of her will.  We tremble to write it--'twas to murder her\nfather.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XV.\n\nTragedy in the Mountains.\n\n\n                        Come, you spirits\n  That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,\n  And fill me from the crown to the toe topful\n  Of direst cruelty!  Make thick my blood;\n  Stop up the access and passage to remorse,\n  That no compunctious visitings of nature\n  Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between\n  The effect and it.  Come to my woman's breasts,\n  And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,\n  Wherever in your sightless substances\n  You wait on nature's mischief!  Come, thick night,\n  And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,\n  That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,\n  Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,\n  To cry, \"Hold!, hold!\"\n                             --Macbeth.\n\n\nPoor Alvira!  Her morning dawned after a restless, sleepless night.\nPhantoms of terror haunted her couch.  The agonies of anticipated\nremorse had cast a withering shadow on her thoughts.  She could not\nbelieve her own depravity in entertaining for a moment such a thrilling\ntemptation.\n\nWas it a dream?  Was it the hallucination of a spirit of evil that\nrevels in the human passions?  \"I, who love my father notwithstanding\nhis faults, who would tremble at the gaze of my mother looking down\nfrom heaven on my awful impiety, and would hear from her tomb her\nscream of terror, her curse of vengeance on my parricidal guilt--could\nI be the foolish wretch that would consent to a deed of crime which\nwould make me a fugitive from the face of men, and haunt my rest with\nthe ghost of a murdered father?\"\n\nThus Alvira mused.  But a demon laughed at her tender conscience; deep\nin hell they had forged a terrible temptation.  They knew the walls\nof the citadel of morality, built alone on natural virtue and unaided\nby divine grace, would soon crumble before their powerful machinations.\nIn moments of sober reflection our resolutions are like prisms of\nbasalt, that will not be riven by the lightning, but which in the hour\nof real trial prove to be ice-crystals that a sunbeam can dissolve.\nThe powers that wage war with frail humanity have hung on the portals\nof the infernal kingdom, as trophies of triumph over man and insult\nto God, the resolutions of mortals made in moments of fervor and\nbroken in weakness.\n\nDays roll on; they bring their sunshine and clouds, but no change in\nthe unhappy family; a change there was for the worse in the appalling\ndevelopment of the infidel and socialistic tendencies of their impious\nfather.  His language, less guarded, seemed to teem with new insults\nagainst religion and God, and contributed to confirm the chill of\nhorror with which he was met by hapless children that sighed over the\nloss of filial love.  His late returns from the lodge, and occasionally\nthose sad ebullitions of intemperance, continued to be their deep\naffliction.\n\nIn proportion as love twines itself around the heart it absorbs all\nother feelings, it draws the passions like lentils around itself; so\nthe contrary feeling of hatred, when permitted to enter the sanctuary\nof the heart, assumes at once a tyrannical sway, whose wicked demands\nof gratification become more and more imperious and exacting day by\nday, and rears a throne that becomes impregnable in proportion as the\nsun is allowed to set on its possessions.  Even filial love has\nwithered under the shadow of Cassier's worthlessness.\n\nIn lonely walks along the lake, in conversations, and in tears the two\ngirls lamented their fate.  The beauty of virtue withered within their\nbosoms.  The resembled two beautiful flowers torn from their bed, and\ncast with the weeds of the garden to taint in their decay the breezes\nthey would sweeten if left on their stem.  They longed for the pleasures\nthat pleased in the day of prosperity; the dance, the banquet, and\nthose visits that won the momentary gratification of flattery and\nadmiration were sighed for.  So irksome was the monotony and so\nuncongenial the role forced upon them by disguise, they hailed with\njoy the least circumstance that might be the harbinger of a change.\n\nIt is at hand.  Once more the excitement of chase!  The vigilance of\ntheir astute father has placed them again in the caleche, and spirited\nhorses are galloping from the Swiss capital.\n\nNews from Paris has arrived; the failure, the flight, the reward, are\npassed around in a sensational romance, and the disappearance of two\npolice officers lends the charms of mystery to the embellished rumor.\nCassier--the hero of the tale, the unsuspected guilty one--went around\nand told the news with all the sanctimonious whining and eye-uplifting\nof a ranting preacher.  In the meantime he matured his plans, and\nbefore suspicion could point her finger at him he fled to another\nretreat to elude for a while the justice of man to meet his awful\ndoom from the hands of God.\n\nDuring the night Cassier and his children ascend the terrific pass of\nthe Tete Noir; he proposes to hide from the threatened storm in the\ncloister of Martigny.  This is a venerable Benedictine monastery,\nerected in the eleventh century by a Catholic prince, under the\nsanction of Urban II., possessing, besides many other privileges,\nthat of sanctuary for fugitive prisoners.\n\nThe dangers of the road and the fear of pursuit lent additional terror\nto the wild mountain scenery; at one moment they are dizzy looking\ninto awful chasms formed by huge perpendicular rocks; then the\noverhanging cliffs would seem every moment to break from their frail\nsupport and rush down the steep mountain in an avalanche of stone.\nIn cold that penetrated to the very bones, amidst the roar of torrents\nleaping through caverns of ice, and in dangers unseen and therefore\nmore dreadful, they passed a restless journey through the mountains,\nand arrived at the charming village of Martigny, over which the\nmonastery presided like the fortress of a mediaeval castle protecting\nthe feudal territory of the petty ruler.  Wearied, but pleased at the\nnovel situation into which chance had cast them, Charles and Henry\napproached the venerable pile with feelings of reverence they had\nnever felt.  The silence of the tomb reigned around, and the old gate\nwas closed.  Whilst wondering how men could come voluntarily to live\nin such a solitude, and how they got the necessaries of life, a bell\ntolled solemnly from one of the towers; its soft, mellow tones rolled\nin sweet echoes across the mountains.  Immediately the place became\nthronged with men in the habit of the Benedictine Order, hastening to\nand fro to commence their daily work.  An aged porter bowed the\nstrangers into a neat apartment, and summoned the Superior.  No\nquestions were asked, but comfortable rooms were appointed to them,\nand they were conducted in silence to the refectory, where a plain\nbut substantial meal was placed before them.  Thus commenced a visit\nthe most extraordinary in the records of this venerable mountain\ncloister.\n\nCharles and Henry were charmed with everything, although they found\nthemselves in strange contrast with desires of worldly pleasure they\nhad recently entertained.  The wild, rugged scenery, the solemn silence\nof the house, and the sanctity of the mortified monks made a deep and\nsolemn impression on the tender hearts of the young visitors, who\nfelt the delicacy of their position in enjoying a forbidden hospitality.\nThe example of the evangelical perfection practised by these holy\nservants of God insensibly drew Charles and Henry to love the sublime\nvirtues they practised.  Nothing impressed them more than the solemn\nchant of the Office at midnight.  The slow, solemn enunciation of\neach word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic cadence\nthrough the precipices of the mountains, and died away in the distant\nravines in echoes of heavenly harmony.\n\nAn aged father was appointed to entertain the strangers.  He led them\nto points on the mountain where the view was most enchanting; skilled\nin ancient monastic lore, he entertained them with anecdotes and\nhistories from which he drew the most instructive morals.  One cheerful\nafternoon, when seated on the rocks viewing a magnificent sunset, the\naged monk told them his own history.  He had been a soldier of fortune.\nIn youth his ambition was as boundless as the horizon; he worshipped\nhis sword and loved the terrors of battle.  Fortune smiled on his\nhopes, and he moved on from grade to grade, until he became commander\nof a division.\n\nHe was present at the fatal field of Salzbach, where the great General\nTurenne fell in the commencement of the battle.  The aged warrior,\nforgetting the gravity of his years and his habit, would speak in the\nfire of other days, suiting his action to the word.\n\nHe told his listeners the touching tale of his conversion.  The death\nof the beloved Turenne, and at the same time the demise of his mother,\nmade him enter seriously into self, repeating the farewell words of\na celebrated courtier who left the French court to don the habit:\n\"Some time of preparation should pass between the life of a solider\nand his grave.\"  He heard the great St. Vincent de Paul preaching on\nthe vanities of life; his resolutions were confirmed, and tears\nstarted to his eyes as he recounted how happy he was in his home in\nthe cliffs and the clouds.\n\nCharles loved to hear the aged man's reminiscences of his military\ncareer.  Fired with chivalrous aspirations, she could spend a lifetime\nin the regions of fancy so fervidly depicted from their Alpine retreat.\nPoor Aloysia was attracted to the higher and more real glories of\nthe virtuous lives of these holy men.  She felt she could stay with\nthem for ever; and there, in the secrecy of her own heart, and before\nthe alter of our Holy Mother, she made promises that shared in the\nmerits of vows.  When free, she would give herself to the love of God\nand the preparation for eternity in some secluded retreat of religion\nand virginity.\n\nBut the nearer the alter, the further from God.  Reverse the picture,\nand another must be contemplated.  Is it the venerable cloister buried\nin the snow, buffeted by the storm, and threatened by the avalanche?\nis it the awful death of starvation hanging in all its gloomy\nanticipations over the community isolated by the snow-storm from the\ncivilized world around?  Or will it be the just indignation of the\nholy monks in finding the true character of the refugees whom they\nhave sheltered in ignorance, contrary to the canons of the Church?\nOr will the still more devastating and ruthless storm of religious\npersecution seek the sanctuary in the clouds to desecrate it, to\nscatter its inmates and wreck its cloisters?\n\nA calamity as thrilling and not less anticipated will fling a sad\nmemory around the venerable cloisters of Martigny.\n\nCassier is in the group listening to the aged monk recount his\nadventures; with knitted eyebrows he hears him moralizing on the awful\ndestiny of the future.  He is a silent listener; the conversation\nis carried on by the garrulous and interested youths and the happy,\nvirtuous old monk.  A forced sobriety, or the atmosphere of virtue\nwhich he dreads, has cast a gloom over him.  His thoughts are still\nreeking with the blasphemy of the Masonic lodges, and, though restrained\nby politeness from intruding his unbelief, he expresses in scowls\nand monosyllables his dissentient feelings.\n\nCharles still burns with indignation at her father's irreligion and\npersonal ill-treatment.  Her flushed countenance and agitated manner\nwere at times indexes of passion, revenge, and self-love; for a moment\nthe feeling is strong and irresistible, then calms again with the\nholier sentiments of remorse and self-condemnation.\n\nA morning as brilliant as ever lit up the glaciers of Mt. Blank rose\nover the cloisters.  Charles and Henry accompany their father on a\nstroll through the mountain.  They miss their kind Mentor, who is\non a retreat for some days.  Henry, commencing to love solitude, strays\nfrom her father and Charles to gather ferns and wild flowers creeping\nfrom the crevices of the rocks, or rising with exquisite beauty from\na layer of snow.  They are emblems of her own innocence and fragrant\nas her virtue, growing in the wilderness and shedding their charms\non rocks and snow-peaks, instead of ornamenting gardens of culture\nand beauty.  Poor Aloysia would be more at home in some arbor of\ninnocence where angels love to tarry, and where the voice and gaze of\nthe worldly-minded have never fallen.\n\nCassier and Charles had slowly climbed to a projecting rock where\nnature had made a large table covered with grass.  On one side the\nascent was easy, but the other overhung a frightful precipice.  They\nhad entered into an animated conversation; Aloysia, down beneath,\ncould hear the sharp, quick answers of Charles, but, as such was usual\nin the temper of Charles, she did not notice it.\n\nBut lo! another moment, and a wild, shrill scream bade her look up;\nher father was no longer on the ledge of rock, and Charles flung her\narms towards heaven and fell in a swoon on the edge of the precipice.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVI.\n\nA Funeral in the Snow.\n\n\nWhen Charles had recovered her consciousness, she found herself\nreclining on the lap of Henry, who had been bathing her face with snow\nand tears.  A long, painful call of her name had reached the inmost\nrecess of her being whither consciousness had repaired.  Springing\nto her feet, startled as if from a frightful dream, she gazed around.\nMemory and sight returned; folding her face in her hands, she cried\nin a paroxysm of grief:  \"My God! what have I done?\"\n\nThis was the only intimation she ever gave Aloysia that in the heat\nof passion she had pushed her father over the precipice; she was his\nmurderer.  In their conversation the old man, more, perhaps, through\nimpiety than conviction, misrepresented the good monks.  We will not\nreproduce the stereotyped calumnies that even nowadays unbelievers love\nto heap upon the religious communities of the Catholic Church.  The\nmadness of passion took control in the breast of Charles.  Scarcely\nknowing what she did, she pushed her aged father towards the precipice;\nhe slipped, fell over into the chasm, and passed into eternity with\nblasphemy on his guilty lips.\n\nThe two sisters wept together for hours.  Innocence, guilt, and\nretribution blended together in a scene of awful tragedy amid the\nglaciers of Mt. Blanc.\n\nSeldom in the deeds of brigandage, in crimes committed in dark caves\nand lonely mountain paths, was there perpetrated a fouler murder;\nseldom in the sensational records of human depravity do we find the\ndesperado of parricidal guilt under the delicate frame of girlhood.\nYet was she rather an instrument in the hands of avenging Heaven\nthan a monster of moral iniquity.  At that moment the cup of iniquity\nwas full for the wretch who had long tested the mercy of God.  That\nProvidence which blinded the Jews in judgement for ingratitude, and\nmade them the instruments for the fulfilment of eternal decrees of\nredemption, withdrew from Alvira the protection that made her, whilst\nshe accepted the guilt, the instrument of judgment.\n\nRising to her feet with a sense of her desperate condition, making a\nfew hurried explanations how her father slipped and lost his balance,\nshe approached tremblingly the fatal edge.  Leaning over, she saw the\ncorpse of her father lying in a pool of blood in the deep chasm below.\nThe scene of that sad moment was indelibly impressed on her memory,\nand in after-hours of remorse haunted her with its horrors.\n\nWith nerve and courage, called forth by the awful circumstances of\nthe moment, they descended the mountain to the foot of the ravine\nwhere the body lay in the snow.\n\nThe descent was steep and treacherous, and guilty conscience made\nCharles tremble lest at any moment she would lose footing and be\nprecipitated down the dark and gaping chasms formed by glaciers and\nrocks.  After hours of toil, and with imminent peril, they found the\nbody of Cassier.  A dark pallor had clouded his features, a ghastly\nstare, closed teeth, and  clenched hand bespoke the last sentiment\nof human passion.  Alvira trembled and stood powerless for a few\nmoments.  Still, necessity nerved her to action.  She removed the\nmoney and valuables from the body of her father, and, in the midst\nof wailings that echoed mournfully through the lonely mountain, they\nmade a grave in the snow.  Wrapping him in his cloak, they laid him\nin a bank of soft crystals through which the blood had trickled in\ncrimson streams.\n\nThrilling and sad for Aloysia and Alvira the last moments of this\nfuneral ceremony.  Gently they placed the cold snow on the remains of\ntheir father.  The wild eagle swooped around in anger, and the wind\nswept with ominous sighs through deep ravines of the rugged mountain.\nThe gigantic cliff over which Cassier had been hurled by his maddened\nchild frowned over them in awful majesty.  It would be in centuries\nto come the cenotaph of a dishonored tomb.  The winter would come again\nwith fresh snow to cover this valley of death; the sun would pour its\ncold rays on the frozen mound that marked the grave of Cassier.  No\ntear of affection would  moisten the icy shroud, but, in sympathy for\nthe hapless child stained with his blood, whose crime was condoned in\nthe provocation caused, the world has cast its abhorrent curse on the\ngrave of the reprobate.\n\n   \"There let every noxious thing\n    Trail its filth and fix its sting;\n    In his ears and eyeballs tingling,\n    With his blood their poison mingling,\n    Till beneath the solar fires.\n    Rankling all, the curse expires.\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVII.\n\nAn Unwritten Page.\n\n\n  The noise of life can ne'er so dull our ear,\n    Nor passion's waves, though in their wildest mood,\n  That oft above their surge we should not hear\n    The solemn voices of the great and good.\n\n  As oft in icicles a flower remaineth\n    Unwithered until spring its buds unchain,\n  The young heart through lifes change a good retaineth,\n    And will exhume its summer leaves again.\n\n\nWhen Charles and Henry had breathed their last sigh over the snowy\nmound that covered the earthly remains of the hapless Cassier, they\ncontinued their descent down the mountain.  They dared not go back\nto the cloister; they fled when no one pursued, for outraged\nconscience is its own avenger.  Each stir in the brushwood, a loosened\nstone rolling quickly by, or the fluttering and scream of startled\nbirds of the solitude, made them tremble.\n\nNight was fast coming on; the sharp peaks of the Tete Noir were dimmed\nwith clouds, and frowned with ominous terror on the path of the\nterrified fugitives.  Through dangers of every kind, with bruises and\nwounds all over their delicate frames, they reached in the night the\nbeautiful village of Chamounix.  Refreshed with sleep and food, they\nprepared themselves for their future course, which for a while will\nbe perilous, sensational, and extraordinary.\n\nFree from the control of an intemperate and tyrannical father,\npossessing immense wealth, they cast themselves into a whirlpool of\ndeceitful pleasure, and for a while, in yielding to the longings of\nmisguided youth, hushed the qualms of conscience, which can only rest\nin the bosom of virtue.\n\nOnce more free, the thought naturally came of returning to the dress\nthat became their sex.  Aloysia, whose sense of delicacy was still as\ntender as the sensitive plant yielding to human touch, pleaded in\ntears for a return to the simple ways of girlhood, to the life and\nsociety more congenial to their habits and more in keeping with the\nlaws of God and nature.  Alvira had yielded for a moment.  But the love\nof travel, which in those days could not be gratified in their true\ncondition of young and handsome girls without guardians, whilst in\ntheir male disguise not a shadow of suspicion or impropriety would\ninterfere with them; the novelty of their condition, assuming each\nday some new attractions; the curiosity innate in the feminine breast\nto hear and see things outside her own circle; above all the\nhallucinations flung on the path of disguise by the fiend of evil,\nwho thus intrigued for the final ruin of his unsuspecting victims,\nmade them agree mutually to pass a short time in travelling around as\nnaval cadets; then, tired and surfeited with their triumph over nature,\nthey hoped to retire into the sphere of utility destined for them by\nProvidence.\n\nBut, to our own and to our readers' regret, we must pause in our\nbiography.  The sources from which we cull these interesting details\nhave cast historic silence over our heroines' ramblings of three years.\nWhat a volume of sensation they suggest!  Were we given to the doubtful\nutility of fictional biography, were we weak enough to enrich ourselves\nby pandering to the morbid and often depraved longings of modern\nliterary taste, we might fill a couple of volumes with scenes of\nexcitement, of \"hair-breadth 'scapes,\" and with heart-palpitating\nsuspenses of misplaced love.  We could not draw a picture more\ninteresting or strange than those two sweet maidens in their disguise.\nWe see them in the salons of the wealthy, in the clubs of the\npoliticians, and at the billiard-tables of giddy youth who little dream\nof the intrusion, which, if they understood, would make them more happy.\nWe fancy we see those youths, so polished, so gay, and withal so\nhandsome, the idols of the society they move in; we hear compliments\nabout those delicate hands, those small feet, those charming eyes.\nOur sympathy would chronicle the end fate of many an unsuspecting\nmaiden who loved and pined in the dream of secret love towards the\nyoung officers that had crossed their path, whilst they revelled in\ncruel delight in their triumph over their own frail, tender-hearted\nsex.  Our tale might unravel the plottings of hopeful mothers who\nvainly plied the utmost worldly ingenuity to gain for their daughters\nalready passed the meridian of youth such promising and charming\nhusbands.  What skill it would demand to describe the chagrin of those\nold and young ladies, if they discovered the fraud which so heartlessly\ntrifled with the sacred feeling of love!\n\nWe will not tarry over imaginary incidents whilst terrible and\nthrilling scenes are before us.  The record of those extraordinary\nmaidens is only now commending in all its romantic attraction.  It is\nnot the vicissitudes of an erring life that inspire our pen in this\nbrief sketch, but the merciful designs of Providence in following and\nwresting from perdition a noble soul, endeared to heaven by the\nprayers of a repentant mother, by the sighs of a saintly religious,\nand by its own love for the immaculate Queen of Heaven.\n\nAlvira opens her soul to the impulses of grace, but in dangerous and\nguilty procrastination she passes through some startling vicissitudes\nbefore the Almighty, impatient as it were for her love, draws her to\nhim by one of the most touching miracles recorded in the wonders of\nhagiology.  We will hurry on to those events, which will warm our\nhearts with love towards God, and make us look up with a deep feeling\nof awe towards that \"mercy which is above all his works.\"\n\nThree years of strange vicissitude rolled over the career of our\nheroines.  Some thousands of pounds gilded the path they passed over.\nWith all the recklessness of youth, they squandered their ill-gotten\nmoney.  Many a poor ruined family eked out a miserable existence,\nwhilst their gold, entrusted to the wretched banker who had gone to\nhis account, was flung recklessly on the tables of chance by the\nchildren he had nursed in the school of iniquity.  Like sand passing\nthrough the fingers, like corn through perforated sack, their thousands\ndwindled away, giving place to the bitter hour of retaliation, of\npunishment, which will yet come for those hapless children of folly.\n\nIt did not please Almighty God to hurry them to a dreadful judgement\nby sudden or awful death.  He has other and even keener pangs than\nthose of death, but they come rather from the hand of mercy than of\njustice.  They are the pangs of remorse, which tear the heart of their\nvictims with agonizing stings that are known only in the deep secrets\nof the soul.  A dark and secret hour of retribution is at hand for\nCharles; the heavy but merciful hand of God will touch her, although\nshe will still follow the mad career of her hypocrisy and the wild\ndreams of her ambition.\n\nAlvira, still in her disguise of Charles, endeavored to forget the\ncrimes she committed in the dissipation in which she indulged.  Whilst\nwealth and friends were around she feigned a gay heart and flattered\nherself she was not so bad.  She involuntarily blushed at rude remarks\nmade by gentlemen amongst whom she passed as a companion, and in the\nunsullied innocence of her sister she found a guardian for herself.\nThey invariably shunned low society, and thus they won the esteem of\nall; they passed as young men of virtue as well as of beauty and of\ngrace.  The immorality that dishonored the manhood around them, the\nindecency of the conversations they heard, and the open and blasphemous\nimpiety that often thrilled their dove-like hearts, made them form\na pleasing contrast with themselves and the corrupted society they\nhad now known to the core; yet, \"Say not I have sinned, and what\nevil hath befallen me.\"  Who can flee from the eye of God?  There's a\nsting in the conviction of guilt that will follow its victim through\nthe ballroom, the mountain cave, or the cloister, to the very side\nof the bed of death.\n\nIt was when Charles and Henry found their money nearly gone, and the\nprospect of poverty before them, they felt in all its painful\nanticipations the prospect of a gloomy and unknown future.  There is\nno pang, perhaps, in nature so keen as that which pierces the rich\nand ambitious when certain poverty stares them in the face; perhaps\n'tis shame, perhaps 'tis pride, perhaps 'tis the despair that arises\nfrom the shock of blasted hopes--or all together--that weight on the\nsinking heart, and make each vital throb like the last heavy thud of\ndeath.  Then suicide has a charm and self-destruction a temptation.\nMany a turbulent wave has closed the career of a the beggared\nspendthrift and the thwarted man of ambition.\n\nCharles commenced now to suffer in anticipation all the pangs of coming\nshame, poverty, and humiliation.  With remorse returned the virtuous\nimpressions of childhood, instilled into her tender mind by her\npenitent mother.  She longed to return to the circle nature had\ndestined for her, but which seemed more difficult now than to commence\na new disguise.  Although she yielded in all virtuous impulses to that\n\"procrastination which is the thief of time,\" yet in her after-career\nthere was a wonderful combination of events, extraordinary and\ninteresting, which prove a loving and forgiving Providence hearing the\nprayer of a penitent mother.  But we must raise the curtain and proceed\nwith the drama of sacred romance whose first cats have given so much\ninterest and sympathy.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVIII.\n\nIn Uniform.\n\n\nIt was a bright morning in November, in the year 1684.  The people of\nMilan were all flocking to the cathedral.  It was the feast of the\ngreat St. Charles.  The magnificent Duomo which now covers the shrine\nof this great saint was not in existence then; nevertheless, the\ndevotion of the people towards their apostle and patron was deep and\nsincere.  Perhaps in no city in Italy is there greater pomp thrown\naround the patron's festival than at Milan.  From morning to night\nthousands gather around that venerated shrine.  The prince with his\nliveried servants, and the poor peasant with the snow-white handkerchief\ntied on her head, kneel there side by side.  From the first anniversary\nof the great saint's death to the present day the musical services of\nthe great cathedral have been rendered by the greatest talent in Italy,\nProfessionals and amateurs flocked from every side to do honor to\nthe man who did so much honor to the city of Milan.  Nowadays, since\nscience has shortened distance, it is one of the autumnal amusements\nof the wealthy Englishman to be present at the Feast of St. Charles\nat Milan.  The gorgeous Duomo, hewn, as it were, out of Carrara\nmarble, covered with five thousand statues and pinnacles, illumined\nwith hundreds of thousands of lights swinging in the lofty aisles in\nchandeliers of sparkling crystal; the majestic organs, accompanied\nin musical harmony by hundreds of the best of human voices, rolling\nin soul-stirring majesty over the heads of tens of thousands of the\nkneeling children of the saint--all leave an impression never to be\nforgotten.  Although in modern days the city of Milan has nurtured in\nher bosom some of the firebrands of Italian revolution, yet the city\nhonored with the names and relics of Ambrose, Augustine, and Charles\nhas yet thousands of pious and holy souls, who still gather with filial\ndevotion around the tombs of the sainted dead.\n\nOn the morning of the festival of St. Charles our heroine awoke with\na heavy heart.  She knew the city was astir and repairing to the\ncathedral.  How strange she should have chosen the name of Charles!\nHow great, how holy everything connected with that name!  Could the\nman of God who made it so venerable to his people meet the wretch who\nhad assumed it to dishonor it?  Could even the pious people who flocked\nto the cathedral know there was amongst them a Charles whose hands were\nstained with parricidal guilt?  Like the wicked man who fleeth when\nno man pursueth, Charles trembled lest the indignation of the people,\nof the saint, and of God should crush her in punishment of her sins.\n\nWith thoughts like these she entered the cathedral.  Henry was by her\nside.  The Pontifical High Mass had commenced, and the organ rolled\nits majestic tones through the aisles of the old church.  Immense\ncrowds had already gathered around the tomb, and Charles and Henry\nrepaired to a quiet and obscure portion of the building, where they\ncould observe without being observed.\n\nSome years had now passed since Charles had breathed a prayer.  There\nwas something in everything around her that softened her heart; she\nburied her face in her hands and wept.  An eloquent panegyric was\npreached by a Dominican Father.  The peroration was an appeal to the\nassembled thousands to kneel and implore the blessing of the saint\non the city and on themselves.  Few sent a more fervent appeal than\nthe poor, sinful girls who shunned the gaze of the crowd.  The prayer\nof Charles was heard, and God, who works wonders in the least of his\nworks, brought about the conversion of this child of predestination\nin a manner as strange as it is interesting.\n\nThe crowd have left the cathedral.  The lights are extinguished.  The\nservice is over.  Charles and Henry are amongst the last to leave.\nOn coming into the great square before the church they were surprised\nto see large groups of men in deep conversation.  Their excited and\nanimated manner showed at once something strange had happened.  Men\nof strange dress appeared also in the crowd.  Charles enquired what\nwas the matter, and was informed that word had just come that\nCharles II. of Spain had declared war with Naples, and, as the state\nof Milan was subsidiary to the kingdom of the latter, he had sent\nofficers to cause an enrolment of troops.  Large inducements were\noffered to all who would join, and numbers of the youth of the city\nhad already given their names.\n\nCharles scarcely hesitated in coming to a conclusion.  The reduced\nstate of their circumstances, the perfection of her disguise, and\nthe still unconquered ambition of her heart made the circumstance\na change of golden hope in the sinking prospects of her career.  One\nthought alone deterred her.  Could the delicate frame and soul of\nher little sister bear the hardships of a soldier's life?  She breathed\nher thoughts to Henry.  The latter cried and trembled.  The one and\nonly scene of blood she had witnessed still haunted her soul with\nhorror--'twas in the ravine near Chamounix.  But Charles still urged\non the necessity of some desperate movement, and persuaded her, if\nthey succeeded in joining this new service as officers, their position\nwould be much the same as that they had passed through during the last\ntwo years.  Poor Henry had but one tie to live for in the world; she\npreferred death to separation from her sister, and in the bravery of\nsisterly affection, she told Charles she would swim by her side in\nthe river of blood she might cause to flow.\n\nThe next morning found them enrolled as officers in the army of the\nKing of Naples.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIX.\n\nRemorse.\n\n\n  They call'd her cold and proud,\n    Because her lip and brow\n  Amid the mirthful crowd\n    No kindred mirth avowed;\n  Alas! nor look nor language e'er reveal\n  How much the sad can love, the lonely feel.\n\n  The peopled earth appears\n    A dreary desert wide;\n  Her gloominess and tears\n    The stern and gay deride.\n  O God! life's heartless mockeries who can bear\n  When grief is dumb and deep thought brings despair?\n\n\nDuring the terrible storm that passed over the Church at the\ncommencement of the third century, we have a thrilling incident which\nshows the terror and remorse of the pagan emperors when they returned\nto their golden house after witnessing the execution of their martyred\nvictims.\n\nDiocletian, being enraged with Adrian, the governor of Aninoe--who,\nfrom being an ardent persecutor of the Church, had become a fervent\nfollower of Christ--caused him to be dragged to Nicomedia, where,\nseized with implacable rage a the sight of the constancy of the martyr,\nwho had once been his friend and confidant, he ordered him to be thrown\nchained hand and foot, at the decline of day, into a deep pit, which\nwas filled with earth and stones before the emperor's eyes.  When\nthe last cry of the victim had been stifled under the accumulated earth,\nthe emperor stamped on it with his feet and cried out in a tone of\ndefiance: \"Now, Adrian, if thy Christ loves thee, let him show it.\"\n\nHe then quitted the field of punishment, but felt himself so overpowered\nby such an extraordinary feeling that he knew not whether it was the\ntermination of his passion or the commencement of his remorse.  His\nThessalian courtiers bore him rapidly away from the accursed spot.\nNight fell; Diocletian, agitated and restless, prepared to retire to\nrest, for his head was burning.  He entered his chamber, which was\nhung around with purple, but the walls of which now seemed to distil\nblood.  He advanced a few steps, when, lo! a corpse appeared to rise\nslowly on his golden couch; his bed was occupied by a spectre, and\nnear the costly lamp, which shed a pale light round the chamber, the\nchains of the martyr seemed to descend from the ceiling.  Diocletian\nuttered a cry that might have penetrated the grave.  His guards ran\nin, but instantly grew pale, drew back, and, pointing to the object\nwhich caused an icy sweat to cover the imperial brow, they said with\nhorror to each other: \"It is the Christian.\"\n\nThus a guilty conscience summons imaginary terrors around it.  Cain\nfled when no one pursued.  Nero heard invisible trumpets ringing his\ndeath-knell around the tomb of his mother.  How often has the mountain\nbandit, whose hand trembled not at murder, shuddered with fear, as\nhe hastened through the forest, at the sound of a branch waving in\nthe wind, or felt his hair stand erect with terror on beholding a\ndistant bush fantastically enlightened by the moon!  Conscience has\nmade cowards of the most sanguinary freebooters and the most shameless\noppressors.  The dreadful \"worm that dieth not,\" and banishes every\ncheerful thought from the guilty soul, is not inaptly compared to the\nwretch we read of in the annals of Eastern crime, condemned to carry\nabout with him the dead and decomposing body of his murdered victim.\n\nIt is not to be expected that Charles escaped the agonies of a guilty\nconscience.  From the moment she left the church in Milan the usual\nand dreadful struggle between shame and grace, humility and pride,\ncommenced in her heart.  Although now and then forgotten in the\nexcitement of the extraordinary disguise she had assumed, nevertheless\nthe feeling of remorse dampened every pleasure, and added to the\ndisguise of her person another disguise of false joy to her countenance.\nThis reaction caused an important feature in the life of Alvira during\nher stay in the beautiful town of Messina, whither we must ask our\nreader to follow our heroines to commence in their military career\nthe most interesting part of his historical romance.\n\nThe Milanese recruits were busily engaged in going through military\ninstruction, when orders were received that the division should\nsail immediately for Messina.  There are few acquainted with the\nmilitary life who do not know how disagreeable are orders to move.\nThe bustle, the packing, the breaking up of associations, and the\ninevitable want of comfort in the military march try the courage of\nthe brave man more than the din of battle, and robs the military\ncareer of much of its boasted enthusiasm.  The stalwart son of Mars,\nwho forgets there are such things as danger and fatigue in the exciting\nhour of battle, will grumble his discontent at the inconveniences of\nthe hour of peace.  We will leave it to the imagination of the reader\nto conceive the feelings, the regrets and misgivings, of our young\nheroines as their little vessel set sail from the town of Spezzia for\nthe fortress of Messina.  Although their biographers say nothing of\ntheir voyage, we cannot but imagine it was an unpleasant one.\nAlthough the blue headlands of the Italian coast, and the snow-capped\nApennines in the distance, supplied the place of the compass, and their\ncalls at the different ports deprived their journey of the painful\nmonotony of a long sea-voyage, yet the associations, the cloud that\nhung over their thoughts, embittered every source of pleasure.\n\nArrived at Messina, Charles and Henry were quartered in the old\nfortress.  It was an antiquated, quadrangular edifice, perched high\nup on the side of the hill, looking down on beautiful white houses\nbuilt one over the other, and descending in terraces to the sea.\nIts old walls were dilapidated and discovered by the touch of time,\nand threatened every minute, as it afterwards did in the earthquake\nof 1769, to commence the awful avalanche of destruction that swept\nthis fair city into the sea.\n\nThe first glimpse of their barracks did not rouse in Henry any\nejaculations of gladness.  The old Castello, as the people called it,\nill-agreed with the noble edifices she was wont to call castles in\nher earlier days--no lofty battlements crested with clouds; no\ndrawbridges swung on ponderous chains;  no mysterious keeps haunted\nwith traditionary horrors; no myriads of archers in gold and blue to\nrend the heavens with a mighty shout of welcome.  Alvira's dream of\nmilitary glory was a veritable castle in the air in the presence of\nthe ruinous, ill-kept, and dilapidated fortress they had come to\nreinforce.\n\nEverything around seemed to increase the gloom that hung over Charles's\nheart.  The ill-clad and poverty-stricken people, squatting in idleness\nand dirt in the streets; the miserable shops; the doce far niente so\nconspicuously characteristic of Italian towns, were contrasted with\nthe beautiful and busy capitals Charles and Henry had come from.  But\nnowhere was this contrast so keen as in their domestic arrangements.\nThe bleak apartments, the campbed, the iron washstand, and the rough\ncuisine contrasted sadly with the magnificence of their father's\nsplendid mansion in Paris.  No wonder our young heroines wept when\nalone over the memories of the past.\n\nCharles and Henry kept together; they avoided all society; they loved\nto ramble along the beautiful beach that ran for some miles on the\nnorth side of the town, and there, in floods of tears, seek relief\nfor their broken hearts.  Oh! how memory will on these occasions\nwake up the happy past lost and gone, and the wicked past yet to be\natoned for.  What heart weighted with the agony of remorse will not\nfeel the sting of guilt more keen in the rememberance of the blissful\ndays of innocence and childhood?  Many a blue wave has wrapt in its\nicy shroud the child of misfortune who was unable to bear the shame\nand reproof of her own conscience.  It was in the recollection of\nvirtuous childhood that Charles and Henry felt their greatest sorrows.\nEvery tender admonition of their dying mother; the instruction of the\naged abbe who prepared them for their first confession and communion;\nand the piety and noble example of their little brother, Louis Marie,\nwho had fled in his childhood from the world they now hated, were\nsubjects often brought up in their lonely rambles.\n\nAt night Charles would often awake with frightful dreams.  The cold,\nbloodstained face of her murdered father would come in awful proximity\nto her.  Her screams would bring her fellow-officers to her assistance,\nbut they knew not the cause of her terror.  The young officers had\nthe sympathy of the whole garrison; even the people who saw them\nreturn from their evening walk remarked them to be lonely and sad,\nand their eyes often red from crying.\n\nThree long and miserable months were thus passed by our heroines at\nMessina.  They were now as skilful in their military exercises as\nthey were in their disguise.  But wearied of the military life, and\nlonging to return to the society of their sex, they had determined\nto leave, to declare who they were, and endeavor, by some means, to\nget back to France.  Whilst deliberating on this movement an incident\noccurred which changed their plans and cast them again into an\nextraordinary circle of vicissitudes.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XX.\n\nNaples.\n\n\nWhilst Charles and Henry were one evening walking along the beautiful\nbeach they saw a ship nearing the land.  A strong breeze was blowing\nat the time, and whilst they paused to admire the noble bark, all\nsails set, ploughing the crested billows, and floating over them like\nan enormous sea-gull, she came nearer and nearer to the young officers.\nAnother minute the sails were lowered and anchor was cast.  A small\nboat was dispatched from the ship, and made for the beach just where\nCharles and Henry were standing.  They formed a thousand conjectures\nof the meaning of this movement.  When the boat came near the land,\na tall young man, dressed in the uniform of the Neapolitan service,\nleaped on shore and advanced towards the young officers.\n\nA few words of recognition passed.  He was a lieutenant in the\nNeopolitan army, sent with despatches for the commandant of the garrison\nof Messina to send two or three companies of the newly-enrolled troops\nto the capital.\n\nOn the way to the garrison he informed Charles and Henry that the war\nwas nearly at an end, but there was a great deal of disturbance and\nsedition in the city of Naples, and that the garrison there had to be\ndoubled.  The object in anchoring the ship on the coast was for fear\nthe garrison of Messina might have been surprised and taken by the\nCarlists.  Having assured himself all was safe, he entered the citadel\nwith the young officers, and was presented to the captain, to whom he\nhanded his despatches from headquarters.\n\nThe next evening found Henry and Charles, with two hundred men, on\nboard the ship that had anchored on the coast the day before.  The\nThe excitement and bustle of departure had silenced for a while all\nfeelings of remorse, and the old passions that reigned in the soul of\nCharles rose again from their dormant state.  Her eye flashed with\nlife and her lips quivered with joy; there was still within her grasp\nthe chance of fame.  Ambition fanned the dying embers of decaying\nhope, and every pious resolve was thrown aside until the course of\nevents would realize or blast her new dream of greatness.\n\nA few days brought them in sight of the beautiful capital of the\nsouth of Italy.  The modern aphorism, \"See Naples and then die,\" was\nsaid in other words in old times, when the Caesars and Senators of\nthe empire enriched its beautiful shores with superb villas.  There\nis not in Europe a bluer sky and, true in its refection of the azure\nfirmament, a bluer sea than around Naples.  The coast undulates to\nthe sea in verdant slopes, which in autumn have a rich golden hue\nfrom the yellow tinge of the vine-leaf.  Its classic fame casts a halo\naround its charms; its history in the far past, its terrible mountain\nand periodical convulsions from the burning womb of the earth, render\nit an object of attraction to all classes.\n\nCharles and Henry were quite alive to the impressions felt by tourists\nwhen, whirled along by the panting steam-horse through the luxuriant\nCampo Flice, they see for the first time the column of murky smoke\nthat rises to the clouds over the terrible Vesuvius.  The old mountain\nwas then, as it is now, the terror and the attraction of tourists.\nThe catastrophes it has caused, the cities it has swallowed up in molten\nashes, the thunder of its roar when roused from its sleep, and the\nunhealthy, sulphurous vapors ever vomited from its cone, render it a\nveritable giant that the human race loves to see at a distance.\n\nOur heroines were already acquainted with the \"Light-house of the\nMediterranean,\" and from afar the lofty and ever-blazing, active Etna;\nhence Vesuvius was not so attractive as a volcano as in the halo of\nclassic lore that hung around it.  At a distance the mountain seems\nto be harmless, the blue outline of the lofty cone terminating in a\ndense bank of smoke, like stormclouds gathering around the snowy peaks\nof the distant Apennines; but when the adventurous tourist wishes to\napproach nearer to its blazing crater, and toils up its torn and\nblackened sides, he will see in the immense chasms and rents traces\nof might convulsions.  Deep rivers of molten lava that take twenty\nand thirty years to cool; the quantity of ashes and cinders that could\nchange the whole face of a country and bury five cities in a few hours,\nmust tell of the enormous furnace raging in the bowels of the earth,\nof which Vesuvius is but its chimney.\n\nStrange, Charles longed to see Vesuvius when but a tender girl in Paris.\nShe little thought the extraordinary course of human events would\nbring her, not only under the shadow of the terrible mountain itself,\nbut send her through a most thrilling scene on its barren slopes.\nLet us hasten on to the course of events that rendered the extraordinary\nlife of this girl so romantic.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXI.\n\nEngagement with Brigands.\n\n\nArrived in Naples, our heroines were quartered in the Molo.  This is\nan old fortress still used as a barrack in Naples.  Its massive,\nquadrangular walls were erected in the middle ages, and have withstood\nmany a desperate siege in the civil wars of Italy.\n\nThe detachment from the Messina garrison found the city in a state of\ndisturbance and confusion.  Armed troops paraded the streets, houses\nwere burning on every side, and bands of revolutionists were running\nfrantically to and fro through the streets, yelling in the most\nunearthly tones their whoops of political antagonism to the Government;\nyet it was evident the Government had the upper hand, and the mob\nwas gradually dispersing; they fled from the city, and order was\nrestored.  In the meantime word was received in Naples that a large\nbody of these ruffians had settled themselves on the sides of Vesuvius,\nand supported themselves by the wholesale plunder and pillage of the\nfarms and villages on the slopes of the hill.  An order was immediately\ngiven that two hundred men should march to the mountain to destroy\nthis band of brigands.  The company selected was that belonging to\nCharles and Henry.\n\nThe next day found our young heroines on the road to the field of\nbattle.  We can fancy the position and thoughts of those tender,\ndelicate girls, marching side by side with the rough, bearded soldiers\nof Italy--the one rejoicing in the wild dream of her foolish ambition;\nthe other trembling in her timid heart, and dragged into scenes she\nloathed by the irresistible chain of affection which bound her to her\nsister.\n\nNo wonder the tender frame of girlhood yielded to the severity of the\nmarch--for amongst those who were first to fail was the amiable Henry;\nyet there were amongst the troops men whose constitutions were\nshattered by the excesses of their youth, and Henry became less\nremarkable as a young officer when stalwart men who had felt ere then\nthe fatigues of war were falling at her side.  Charles hired a loose\nhorse in one of the villages they passed through, and thus arrived\nfresh and strong at the place of encampment, a few miles from the\nstronghold of the brigands.  Henry came up in the afternoon, accompanied\nby about thirty men who, like herself, failed under the fatigues of\nthe march.\n\nRest under the circumstances was impossible.  The brigands were all\naround and no one could tell the moment of attack.  Some men were sent\non as scouts to explore the hillside; they never returned.  This was\nsufficient indication of an ambuscade and the captain bravely determined\nto march his whole force at once into their hiding-place, knowing,\nwhen they were once surprised, they had no shelter afterwards.\n\nThose who have been to Mount Vesuvius, and who have had the hardihood\nto seek the exquisite Lacryma produced on the southwester slopes of\nthe hill, will remember a peculiar ravine running for nearly a mile\nfrom the sandy part of the cone, and covered with a stunted green\nbush of fern-like leaves.  It is the nearest green spot to the calcined\ncone.  It assumes a gentle declivity towards the sea, and is then lost\nin the beautiful vineyards and gardens that cover the slopes of the\nmountain down to the houses of Torre del Greco.  The view from this\nspot is magnificent.  On the left is the beautiful town of Sorento,\nwith houses as white as snow, running in detached villas along the\nsea-shore up to the smoky and roofless walls of Pompeii, whose unsightly\nruins lend contrast to the scene around.  The azure bay seems to borrow\nmore of the blue of heaven as it stretches far away to the horizon;\nthe little steamers and innumerable yachts that ply between the islands\ngive the scene animation and variety.  Around to the right we have the\nclassic hills of Baia, the Campo Santo in its fantastic architecture,\nand then the green and leafy plains of the Campo Felice; beneath, the\ngreat city with its four hundred thousand souls, its red tiles and\nirregular masses of brick-work, contrasting with the gilded domes of\nthe superb churches; and above, the terrible cone, vomiting forth its\nsulfurous smoke and darkening the sky with clouds of its own creation.\n\nThe view that can be had from this place, and the interesting history\nof every inch of the country around, render it one of the most romantic\nspots in the world.  But, alas! it is now, as it was two hundred years\nago, the home and retreat of those desperate Italian robbers known\nas brigands.  Woe betide the incautious traveller whom curiosity leads\nthrough the vineyards of that lonely scene!  The deeds of its outlawed\nand daring inhabitants would fill volumes.  It was here, too, as far\nas we can learn, our heroines found their field of battle.\n\nThe troops had scarcely entered this ravine when a sharp, shrill whistle\nrang from one side of the mountain to the other.  Immediately human\nvoices were heard on all sides, repeating in every pitch of tone, from\nbass to soprano, the word \"Rione.\"  For several minutes the mountain\nechoed with the weird sound of the brigand war-cry; the troops were\nordered to stand in readiness, and timid hearts like Henry's quailed\nat the awful moment.\n\nThe earth rumbled under their feet, and dark, bluish columns of smoke\ncurled in the air from the terrible cone; the sun was setting over the\nbeautiful Bay of Naples in the color of blood, and the air was\nimpregnated with the fumes of sulphur.  The wilderness of the spot,\nand nature's terrors convulsing the elements around, made, indeed,\nthe moment before battle a dreadful moment for the delicate children\nof the French banker.\n\nA few minutes, and the battle was at its height.  A long and dreadful\ncontest ensued.  The numbers were about equal on both sides.\nFortunately, the brigands had not time to muster all at once, and the\nroyalist troops met them in small but desperate bands.  No sooner was\none defeated than another and another poured down from the sides of\nthe mountain and disputed every inch of the way.  The brigands fought\nbravely, but were outnumbered, and towards midnight the bloodshed\nceased.  All sounds had died away save the groans of the wounded and\ndying, and now and then a solitary whoop of a brigand chief from the\ndistant hills, calling together the few straggling and scattered bands\nof rebels.\n\nThe moment the heat of the combat was over the first thought that struck\nCharles was to look for Henry.  They were separated in the confusion\nof the fight.  She ran through the men, but could not find her.  Here\nand there she could discern in the pale light of a clouded moon some\nknot of soldiers binding up their wounds and recounting their escapes\nand their triumphs.  She hurriedly ran through them, enquiring for her\nbrother-officer, but none knew anything of her.  She scanned every\nfeature, she called her in every group, but in vain--no Henry was\nthere.  The awful thought struck her--and her heart nearly broke under\nits pang--perhaps she is killed!  She flew across the bloody path they\nhad passed; her mournful and shrill cry of \"Enrico!\" rolled over the\nbodies of the slain, and was echoed again and again with plaintive\nintensity from the surrounding hills.  Sometimes she even fancied the\ndying echo of her own shrill cry was the feeble answer of her wounded\nsister; and when she would pause to listen again, the valley around\nwas wrapt in the stillness of death.  At length she came to the spot\nwhere the battle first commenced, and there, with a shriek that was\nheard in the distant encampment, she found among the first victims of\nthat bloody night the lifeless corpse of her sister.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXII.\n\nThe Morning After the Battle.\n\n\nThe morning sun rose dimly in a bank of clouds.  It found Charles\nstill clinging to the remains of poor Aloysia, and bathing with kisses\nand tears the stiffened features of her beloved sister.  With a silken\nkerchief she had bandaged the fatal gash on her neck, believing she\nmight be only in a swoon and might recover.  Hope, which is the last\ncomfort to abandon man in his most desperate condition, scarcely\nretarded for Charles the awful reality of her bereavement.\n\nThe pale moon that has rolled over so many generations, and lent its\ndim, silvery light to so many thrilling vicissitudes, never looked\ndown on a sadder scene.  Death has no pang equal to the blow it give\ntrue affection.  No language could describe what the heart feels on\noccasions like this.  There sat the delicate French girl, alone in the\ndark night, on the side of Vesuvius, in the midst of the bleeding\nvictims of the bloody fight, and clasping to her heart the cold,\nlifeless body of her ill-fated sister.\n\nHer sudden and awful end, swept, perhaps, into eternity without a\nmoment's notice, to be buried in the ashes of the volcano, amidst the\ndishonored remains of outlaws and murderers--does not the thought\nstrike us that this sad fate was more the due of Alvira than the\ninnocent and harmless Aloysia?\n\nAlvira felt it, and her repentant heart was almost broke.\n\n\"O Aloysia!\" hear her moan over the angelic form, \"you innocent and I\nguilty; you slain, judged, and I free to heap greater ingratitude on\nthe Being who has saved me.  Aloysia, forgive!  Thou wert dragged up\nunwillingly to these desperate scenes of bloodshed by my infatuation.\nO God! strike me.  I am the wretch; let this angel live to honor thee\nin the angelic simplicity of innocence!\"\n\nNever was a fairer flower blasted by the lightning of Heaven.  Neither\nCharles nor Henry knew what was before them in their march to Vesuvius.\nTo surround and capture a few runaways was perhaps the most they\nexpected; and Henry, in the confiding affection of her heart, clung\nto Charles, determined to bear fatigue and hardship rather than be\nseparated from her.\n\nIt must be a painful picture that fancy will paint of the last hour\nof this lovely child.  The anguish of her heart must have been keener\nthan the deep wound that sent the life-streams to mingle with the lava\nof the mountain:  no one to minister a drop of water to her parched\nlips; no friendly voice to console her; the moans and imprecations of\nthe wounded brigands grating on her ears; the thought that her sister,\ntoo, was perhaps lying in pain, and sinking from her wounds; and, above\nall--that which, perhaps, sent the last blush to her cheek--the fear\nof the discovery of her sex, and the rough gaze of a brutal soldiery.\nBut Heaven's sympathizing spirits were gathered around this child of\nmisfortune, and doubtless with her last sigh he breathed her pure\nsoul into their hands, and the last wish was answered--for she was\ngood and innocent before God.\n\nWhen the sun had fully risen, Charles was approached by a sergeant\nof the troops, who announced to her that the captain had died during\nthe night from his wounds, and, as she was the senior officer, they\nwaited her orders.  Dissembling her grief, Charles rose to her feet\nand gave directions that the bodies of the captain and her brother\nshould be buried in their clothes and wrapped in the flag of the\ncountry.  The hardy veterans raised the delicate frame of Henry, and\ncarried it on a rude bier to the hut where the remains of the captain\nwere prepared for interment.  Silent and solemn was the funeral cortege.\nNo drum, not a funeral note, was heard.  Every eye was wet, and the\nbreast of Charles was not the only one that heaved the farewell sigh\nover the young and beautiful officer.\n\nCharles stood by to see the last of her sister.  The dark, black sand\nwas poured down on her lovely face, and silently and quickly her\nmountain grave was filled by the blood-stained hands of her companions\nin arms.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIII.\n\nReturn--A Triumph.\n\n\nCharles had dreamt a golden dream.  Ambition's cup is full, but its\ndraught is bitter.  On the march to Naples, in triumph, commanding\nthe royal troops, who had completely beaten the brigands, were glories\nCharles never thought she was one day to obtain.  With her return to\nthe city the war was ended, and the people were rejoicing in the\nrestoration of peace.  The young captain who had returned so victorious\nfrom Vesuvius was the lion of the day.  The city gave her an ovation\nfar beyond her most sanguine hopes.  Illuminations were instituted in\nher honor, her name was shouted in the streets, and the nobles and\ngreat ones of the state gathered around her as if the safety of the\nkingdom had depended on her own personal efforts.  For some time crowds\nof lazzaroli gathered around the entrance of the Molo to see the young\nand beautiful captain who had achieved such wonders; and we can fancy\nhow sweetly would ring on the ears of our ambitious heroine the shout\nof the enthusiastic crowd sending far and wide the \"Erira Carlo\nPimontel!\"  The King confirmed her position of captain, and sent her\nthe iron and golden crosses of honor, only given to the bravest of the\nbrave in those days of strife and warfare.\n\nBut vanity of vanities, and all is vanity!  Let us raise the veil of\ndeception that shrouds the emptiness of human joy.  Alvira has now\ngratified her heart's desires in everything she could have under the\nsun.  She had beauty, wealth, and fame, but she was like the pretty\nmoth that hovers around the flame of the candle, and finds its ruin\nin the touch of the splendor it loves.  Poor Alvira was another child\nof Solomon that sighed over the emptiness of human joy; for bitter\ndisappointment is the sad tale ever told in the realization of misguided\nhope.  Often, at midnight, when the unknown captain would return from\nthe theatre or some festive entertainment given in her honor, she would\nsit at her table, wearied and disgusted, and weep bitterly.  The\nunnatural restraint necessary to preserve her disguise, the separation\nfrom all the comforts and sympathies common to her sex, and the painful\nreminiscences of the past wrung tears of misery from her aching heart.\nThe dreams of Messina haunted her still, but increased in anguish\nand terror, as her thoughts could now fly from the lonely cave on the\nAlps to the battle-field on the side of Vesuvius.  Again the pangs\nof remorse poisoned every joy; again the angry countenance and clenched\nhand of her murdered father would bend over her restless couch; and\nagain the scream of terror in the dark, silent midnight would summon\nher friends around her.  Deep and fervent the prayer that was poured\nforth from that sad and breaking heart that some providential\ncircumstance would enable her to make the change she had no long\npremeditated.  That change is at hand.  Her mother's prayer is still\npleading for her before the throne of God; he who cast an eye of mercy\non the erring Magdalen had already written the name of Alvira in the\nbook of life, and destined her to be one of the noblest models of\nrepentance that adorn the latter history of the Church.  Let us come\nto the sequel of this extraordinary history; but first we must introduce\nour readers to a new character--a great and holy man, destined by\nProvidence to save Alvira, and give the most interesting and most\nremarkable chapter in this romance of real life.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIV.\n\nAlvira's Confession.\n\n\n                      Tremble, thou wretch,\n  Though hast within thee undivulged crimes,\n  Unwhipped of justice:  hide thee, thou bloody hand;\n  Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue,\n  Thou art incestuous:  caitiff, to pieces shake,\n  That under covert and convenient seeming\n  Hast practised on man's life:  close pent-up guilts,\n  Rive your concealing continents, and cry\n  These dreadful summoners grace.\n                                            -- Lear.\n\n\nIt was a beautiful morning in the Lent of 1678.  The sun had risen\nover the Apennines, and flung its magnificence over the Bay of Naples.\nThe smoke of Vesuvius cast its shadow like a monstrous pine over the\nvineyards and villas that adorned the mountain-side to the sea-shore.\nThe morning was such as Byron gazed on in fancy through the sorrowful\neyes of the eloquent heroine of one of his tragedies:\n\n\n  \"So bright, so rolling back the clouds into\n  Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky,\n  With golden pinnacles and snowy mountains,\n  And billows purpler than the ocean's, making\n  In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,\n  So like we almost deem it permanent,\n  So fleeting we can scarcely call it aught\n  Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently\n  Scattered along the eternal vault!\"\n\n\nWhilst the eight hour was chiming from the tower of the old Gesu there\nissued from the monastery attacked to the church a priest accompanied\nby an acolyte bearing a large, plain cross and ringing a small bell.\nThey moved in the direction of the mole or old fortress of the city.\nSoon a crowd followed--some bare-headed; others, especially the females,\ntold their beads in silence.\n\nThe traveller in Italy is aware of the pious custom practised by some\nof the religious communities of preaching in the open air to the people\nduring the season of Lent.  Extraordinary things are related of these\nharangues.  The lives of the sainted missionaries ring with tales of\nthe marvellous and miraculous powers given to God's servants when, in\nmoments of fire and zeal, they went from their cloisters like beings\nof another world to awaken sinners to a sense of future terrors.  At\none time we read of the saint's voice carried miraculously to a distance\nof several miles; the peasant working in the fields would hear the\nsweet sounds without seeing the speaker.  At another the funeral\nprocession was arrested and the dead called from the bier to testify\nto the truth of their teaching.  Curing the cripple and restoring health\nto the sick were of ordinary occurrence.  Our blessed Lord told the\nmessengers who came to enquire about him to report his miracles as\na proof of his divinity:  the blind see, the lame walk, the sick are\nrestored to health; but greater than all his reversions of the natural\nlaws were the humility and the mysterious arrangement of his providence\nwhich he prophetically announced when he told his disciples that those\nwho should come after him would perform greater miracles than he.\nThere are few of the Thaumaturgi more celebrated than the humble father\nwho has just issued from the Gesu to thunder forth with superhuman\neloquence the truths of God and religion.\n\nNo sooner had the people heard the little bell of the attendant and\nseen the venerable priest leave the college than they gathered from\nvarious quarters, and seemed to vie with each other in getting nearest\nto him.\n\nHe was a tall, thin man, his hair gray, shading a majestic forehead,\nand but slightly wrinkled with the summers of over sixty years; his\neyes were partly closed, but when preaching they glowed with animation,\nand were brightened by the tears that dimmed them; his long, wiry\nfingers were interlocked and raised towards his breast in the attitude\nof deep contemplation.  The rough soutane and leather belt, the beads\nand missionary cross partly hid in his breast, declared him to be a\nfollower of St. Ignatius.  In the hallowed austerity of his whole\nappearance, in the sweetness blended with religious gravity, and in\nthe respect and love manifested in the ever increasing crowd, one\neasily learned he was more than an ordinary man.  The people of Naples\nknew him by the endearing name of Brother Francis; history has since\nwritten his name in letters of gold on the alters of the Catholic\nChurch as St. Francis of Jerome.\n\nIt must have been a treat to the people who heard such saints as Francis\nof Jerome preach.  Natural eloquences is a rare and powerful gift;\nwhen guided by education and study, the talent exercises a marvellous\ninfluence on man; but add to these two a zeal and fervor of spirit\nsuch as burned in the mortified spirit of the man of God, and we have\na power that is nothing short of supernatural and irresistible.\n\nFrom a heart all aglow with divine love he soon enkindled in his hearers\nthat fire his divine Master came to kindle on earth.  His sermons were\nmiracles.  So great was the crowd around him at times that it would\nbe impossible for any human voice to reach his furthest hearers.  Yet\nevery word of the great preacher went with silvery tone and moving\npower, as if wafted on angel breathings, to the ears of sinners whom\nchance or grace had brought to join the immense crowd that surrounded\nhis rude platform.  Each sermon brought hundreds to repentance.  Eyes\nthat were long dry melted into tears, and hearts that were strangers\nto every sweet and holy influence throbbed with emotion.  Efforts to\ncheck the pent-up feelings were expressed by louder and convulsive\nsobs; some knelt and prayed, others beat their breasts in the agony\nof contrition.  The immense concourse of people, simple and religious\nminded, at all times impressionable, were, under the appeals of Francis,\nmoved as in times of public calamity, and the whole crowd swayed to\nand fro as the deep moved by the storm--now trembling in terror, now\nashamed of sin and ingratitude, and again encouraged with hope, whose\ncheerful beams the orator would cause to dart through the dark clouds\nhe himself had gathered over their mental vision.\n\nOn one occasion a courtesan ridiculed from her bed-room window the\nwords of the saint.  She fell dead immediately.  When he heard of the\nawful judgement passed on this hapless woman, he ordered her body to\nbe brought to him.  Then, amidst a death-like silence, he cried out\nin a voice of thunder that penetrated the regions of the damned:\n\"Catherine, where art thou now?\"\n\nThe soul answered with a shriek that sent a thrill through the assembled\nthousands:  \"In hell!\"\n\nAlthough in scenes of terror like these Francis thundered forth the\nawful destinies of the judged, yet the mercy of God towards the sinner\nwas his favorite theme.  He looked on himself as called in a special\nmanner to seek out the lost sheep, to soften down the roughness found\non the path of repentance, to aid in the struggles willing souls find\nin their efforts at reformation.  Francis knew, as all masters of the\nspiritual life have learned, there is more power in the eloquence of\nforgiving love than in the terrors of retribution; hence, with tears\nand burning sentiments of sympathy for the erring children of men,\nhe led his hearers as it were by the hand to the Father of the\nprodigal--to that Jesus who forgave and loved the penitent Magdalen.\n\nFrancis has now ascended his platform.  The crowd are swelling around.\nHe raises the sign of redemption over their heads; in a few majestic\nsentences he commences his subject; the fire is kindling in his eye,\nand the thunder is deepening in his splendid voice.  The listeners\nare wrapt in breathless attention.\n\nOn the outskirts of the crowd there is a young officer, slender,\ngraceful, tidy to a fault.  It is Alvira.\n\nShe was passing down the Toledo, and had already heard the saint before\nshe had seen him.  She had heard of the great preacher, but was afraid\nto meet him.  Grace had followed her in all her wanderings, and the\nprayers of her mother were still heard at the throne of God.  The crowd\nis so great Alvira cannot pass to the Molo, where she was quartered\nwith her regiment.  She must listen.\n\nStrange, consoling ways of divine grace!  It was thee, O Lord! who\ndrew they servant from his convent on that auspicious morning; thou\ndid'st gather the crowd around him, and inspire him with the words\nand theme of his moving discourse!  It was thy mercy, smiling with\ncompassion on a noble but erring soul, which brought her to listen\nto those words that would bring thy grace to her heart!\n\nLike one whose eye has caught a brilliant meteor flying through the\nheavens, and remains gazing on it until it has disappeared, Alvira\ncould not remove her eyes from Francis.  When she saw his saintly\nfigure standing on the rude platform, holding in his outstretched\nhand the saving sign of redemption, she was seized with an unaccountable\nfeeling of awe.  Although every word of the sermon was heard and\nweighed, it seemed as if the pent-up memories of her soul took\nprecedence of her thoughts, and rushed on her with overwhelming force,\nlike the winds let loose by the storm-god of old.  Everything strange\nor sad in her past career lent its quota of color to the dark picture\nremorse, with cruel and masterly hand, delineated before her troubled\nspirit.  The struggle, the agony she had learned to brave in the Duomo\nat Milan and the fortress of Messina, rose again with hydra fangs\nfrom the tomb of oblivion in which recent excitements had buried it.\nNone but her guardian angel knew her soul was once more the battle-field\nof contending feelings.  At length a crimson blush passed over her\nmarble features; a crystal tear-drop dimmed her eye; another sprang\nfrom the reservoirs of the heart and stole down the blushing cheek.\nAlvira wept.\n\nTears have a language of their own deep and powerful; they tell of the\nweakness of the human heart, not its triumphs; for passion has a throne\nthat tears may wash in vain.  It is easier to drive the mighty river\nfrom its long-loved bed than the soul from the normal state of its\ngratified tendencies.\n\n\"The heart,\" says St. Liguori, \"where passion reigns, has become a\ncrystal vase filled with earth no longer penetrated by the rays of\nthe sun.\"  The iron pedestal of passion's throne was not yet shivered\nin the heart of Alvira, nor were tears a sign that the sun of grace\nhad pierced the crystal vase of the worldly heart.  Great will be\nthe grace that will draw Alvira from the zenith of a golden dream in\nwhich a triumphant ambition has placed her above her sex, and great\namongst the heroes of the manly sex she feigned.  Her conversion will\nbe a miracle--a miracle of sweet violence, such as drew the Magdalens,\nthe Augustines, and the Cortonas from the trammels of vice to the holy\nand happy path of repentance.\n\nThe sermon is over.  The crowd is still between Alvira and the Molo;\nshe must wait.\n\nThe people are gradually dispersing.  Some go to the church to follow\nup the holy inspirations given, to throw themselves at the feet of a\nconfessor, to break the chains of sin; others hasten to their homes\nor daily avocations, wondering, pleased, and sanctified in good desires\nand resolutions that came gushing from their hearts.\n\nAlvira is standing to one side alone and wrapt in thought.  Suddenly\nshe looks up.  Something catches her eye.  She starts; a tremble passes\nfrom head to foot.  She looks again; her worst terrors are realized.\nIt is--Father Francis is coming towards her!\n\n\"But he can't be coming to me,\" she thought to herself.  She looked\naround to see if there were any other object to bring the father in\nthat direction; but there was no poor creature to ask his charity, no\npoor cripple to seek his sympathy; she was almost alone.  She could\nhave fled, but felt herself fixed to the ground, and with desperate\nefforts endeavored to conceal her excitement.  He approaches nearer;\nwith glistening eye she watches and hopes some fortuitous circumstances\nmay call him aside.  Their glance meets; she blushes and trembles,\nFather Francis is before her.\n\nFor a moment he gazed on the young captain with a kind, penetrating\nlook; and a smile on his features seemed to express a friendly\nrecognition.  Calling her by her assumed name, he said to her, almost\nin a whisper:  \"Charles, go to confession; God wishes thee well.\"\n\nAlvira was relieved.  The kind, gentle manner of the father calmed\nthe storm of conflicting fears.  Rejecting the inward calls of grace,\nand hoping she was not discovered, she replied with some hesitation:\n\n\"But, father, I don't require to go to confession.  I have not done\nanything wrong.\"\n\nHer voice faltered, and the blush of conscious falsehood grew deeper\nand deeper on her glowing features.\n\nFather Francis drew himself up with majesty; his eye beamed with the\nglow of inspiration, and in a solemn reproof he addressed the trembling\ngirl:\n\n\"You have done nothing wrong, nothing to merit the judgments of a\nterrible God--you, who murdered your father in the snows of the Alps,\nrobbed him of ill-gotten wealth, spent it in gaming, and dragged your\ninnocent sister in the path or your own shameless adventure!\"\n\n\"Father! father!\" cried Alvira, bursting into convulsive sobs.\n\n\"Maria Alvira Cassier,\" continued the man of God in a milder tone,\n\"go and change those garments; cease this tale of guilty hypocrisy.\nBut--\"\n\nAdvancing towards her, he took her hand, and, resuming the paternal\nsmile that relaxed his solemn features and banished her fears, said\nin a low tone:  \"But come with me to the Gesu.\"\n\nAlvira obeyed.  She was thunderstruck.  The revelation of the great\nsecrets of her life summoned up paralyzing fears; but, accustomed\nto brave the succumbing weakness of the feminine character, and\nencouraged by the paternal manner of the father, she did not faint,\nbut buried her face in her hands and wept.\n\nIn silence she followed Father Francis.  She skilfully concealed her\nemotions; the tears were brushed away as rapidly as they overflowed.\nIn passing the squares that separated them from the church, Alvira\nhad resolved to unbosom herself to the good father.  Like the angel\nthat led Peter from his prison, she knew this sainted man was destined\nto lead her from the prison of her hypocrisy.  Where grace has not\nconquered, consequences are weighed, the future becomes too dark and\nunknown for the cowardly heart, and temporal evils assume the weight\nof eternal woes; the blinded self-love yields, and the moment of grace\nis abandoned.  But Alvira's conversion was complete, and, without one\ndoubt or fear for the future, she handed herself to the guidance of\nthe venerable father, who had learned by inspiration from heaven the\nspiritual maladies of her soul.\n\nThe whole of that day was spent in the church.  She crouched into an\nangle behind one of the large pillars.  Like the dew that freshens\nand vivifies the vegetation that has been dried up by the parching\nsun, the exhilarating breathings of the divine Spirit spread over\nher soul that peace which surpasseth all understanding.  In the fervor\nof her first real moments of prayer, the hours passed as seconds;\nunmindful of food, of the duties incumbent on her military profession,\nand of the busy world around, she was not roused from her reverie\nuntil the golden floods of the setting sunlight fell in tinted splendor\nthrough the stained-glass windows of the old Gothic church.\n\nAs the church bells were merrily chiming the Ave Maria, a gentle tap\non her shoulder called her attention.  It was Father Francis.  He had\nwatched her all the day with a secret joy; he knew the value of moments\nlike these in maturing the resolutions of the converted soul, and, as\nhe had not yet completed his arrangements, he was afraid his penitent\nmight slip from him in the crowd and be exposed to temptations that\nmight discourage her; the cold blast of the world might shake to the\nground the fabric he had commenced to build.  He bent his venerable\ncountenance to her ear, whispered a word of consolation, and bade her\nnot leave till he came for her.\n\nThe father moved silently and thoughtfully through the sombre aisles;\nnow and then he would stop to converse with some child of grace, for\nhe had many awaiting his spiritual aid.  With smiles of holy joy, he\nimparted consolation to each, and sent them to their homes accompanied\nby those spirits that rejoice in the conversion of the sinner.\n\nA few moments, and the lights were extinguished, the crowd is gone.\nThe cough and suppressed sigh are no longer heard from the deep aisles,\nand the footsteps of the ever-changing crowd have ceased to clatter\non the marble pavement.  The solitary lamp in the sanctuary cast a\nfitful shadow through the silent and abandoned church, and was the\nonly indication of the presence of Him who rules in the vast spheres\nof the heavens.  Alvira felt happier in this lonely moment before the\nMost Holy Sacrament.  The fruit of years of penance, and the conquest\nof turbulent, rebellious passions, have often been gained in moments\nof fervor before the alter.  Like sand, changed to transparent crystal\nglass under the blow-pipe, the heart is melted and purified under the\nfire of love that darts in invisible streams from the loving Victim\nof the tabernacle.\n\nThe closing of the church door and the rattling of carriage wheels in\nthe direction of the Chaja close an eventful day, recorded in golden\nletter in heaven's history of repentant humanity.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXV.\n\nHonor Saved.\n\n\nA series of surprises followed this memorable conversion.  Alvira's\nabsence from the garrison was the subject of serious comment.  Rumor\nwas busy, and disposed of the young captain by every imaginable\nviolent death.  One report seemed the most probable and gained ground.\nIt was thought the partisans of the defeated party, remembering the\nvictory of Vesuvius, and galled at the popularity of the young captain,\nhad waylaid and murdered him.  At the same time the mangled body of\na young man was found washed into the river by the tide; it was\nmutilated and disfigured beyond recognition; the populace claimed\nit to be the body of their favorite, and loud and still rang the\nindignant cry for vengeance.  The city was in commotion.  The\nauthorities were induced to believe the report, and large rewards were\noffered for the apprehension of the murderers.  'Tis but a spark that\nmay set the wood on fire; and popular feeling, fired by a random rumor,\nnow blazed in all the fury of a political conflagration.\n\nIn the midst of the commotion the commandant of the forces received\na polite note requesting his presence at the residence of the\nMarchioness de Stefano.  Puzzled at the strange summons, but polite\nto a fault, he appeared in grand tenu at the appointed hour in the\nsalons of the Marchioness.  A young lady was ushered in to the\napartment.  She was dressed in black, wore no jewelry, and seemed a\nlittle confused; a majestic mien set off some natural charms, but her\nfeatures had an expression of care and sadness such as is read on the\ncountenance of the loving fair one who has been widowed in her bloom.\nHer eyes were red, for many tears had dimmed them; her voice was weak,\nfor shame had choked the utterances in their birth; her whole demeanor\nexpressed deep anxiety and trouble.\n\nThe commandant was kind-hearted, but a stern ruler in those days of\ntrouble; he had seen in the revolutions of many years the miseries\nand sorrows of life; though insensible to the horrors of the\nbattle-field, he felt a deep, touching sympathy with its real victims\nwho survive and suffer for years in silent woe, in affections that have\nbeen ruthlessly blasted by cruel war.  The feeling of compassion\ntowards the strange lady introduced to him were deeply enhanced by\nthe remarks by which she opened the conversation.\n\n\"I sent for you, sir,\" commenced the lady in a subdued tone, \"to speak\nto you about Captain Charles Pimontel.\"\n\nThe veteran soldier, believing she was his betrothed, that she was\ntorn by cruel destiny from the object of her affections, endeavored\nto soothe her troubled spirit by the balm of kindness and consolation.\n\n\"Ah! madame,\" he replied in his blandest manner, \"if report be true,\na cruel fate has removed him for a while from thy embrace.  Young,\nbrave, and amiable, he was the darling of our troops, and fortune\nseemed to lead our gallant young captain to a brilliant career; but\nsome foul assassin's hand has cut the flower ere it bloomed; destiny,\nas cruel as it has been mysterious, has darkened his sun ere yet it\nshone in the zenith of day!\"\n\n\"Oh! sir, it may not yet be true that he has met such a sad fate,\"\nretorted the lady.\n\n\"Alas!\" replied the commandant, \"yesterday evening the youth's body\nwas washed up on our beach; the wounds of twenty stilettos gaped on\nhis mangled corpse, and the lampreys of our bay fed on his noble flesh\nas they would on the vile slaves cast to them by the monster Nero.\nThese eyes have seen the horrid sight; though we could not recognize\nthe brave youth, we wept as if our own son had fallen by cowardly\nhands.\"\n\nThe old commandant was somewhat excited; before the warm tear had welled\nfrom the fountains of sympathy, the young lady spoke in an animated\nand excited manner:\n\n\"But, sir, there is surely some mistake.  It cannot be said Charles\nPimontel was murdered; does it follow because the unrecognized body\nof some hapless victim of a street brawl has been washed on the beach\nthat it must necessarily be the body of the captain?  Do you not think\nhis murderers would pay dearly for this attack on him?  Have any\nwitnesses come forward to swear to his assassination?  I will not\nbelieve in his death until stronger proofs have been given; and I may\nbe intruding on the precious time of our commandant, but I have sought\nthis interview with you have found the murdered remains of Charles\nPimontel.\"\n\n\"Love, madame,\" rejoined the commandant sentimentally, \"clings to\nforlorn hopes, and in its sea of trouble will grasp at straws.  The\nwhole city has proclaimed the murder of the captain; our military\nchapel is draped in gloom, and I have given orders that all the garrison\nbe in attendance on the morrow at the obsequies.\"\n\nThe lady, who at first intended a strange surprise for the commanding\nofficer, began to fear things were going too far, and that no time\nwas to be lost in declaring the real fate of the captain.  She arose\nquickly, and, approaching near to him, spoke with strong emphasis:\n\n\"I beseech you, sir, to stay these proceedings; I tell you on my word\nof honor the captain is not dead.\"\n\n\"Then you know something of him?\" interrupted the commandant.  \"I\ncommand you, madame, in the name of the King, to tell me of his\nwhereabouts.  If he has, without sufficient cause, absented himself\nfrom military duty, by my sword the rash youth shall be punished.\nBesides playing the fool with the people, the inviolable sanctity of\nthe military constitutions has been violated.  Madame, your lover,\nperhaps, has forgotten himself over his cups.  If secreted within these\nwalls, produce him, that he may know, for thy sake, and in consideration\nof his first fault, the leniency of his sentence for violation of\nour military rule.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" replied the young woman, drawing herself up majestically, and\nfearlessly confronting the aged officer, whose inviolable fidelity\nto military honor made him warm in his indignation at the supposed\ndelinquency of his subaltern--\"sir, the secret of the captain's absence\nand his present abode is committed to me; but I shall not divulge the\ninformation you ask until you promise me that, having shown you\nreasonable cause for his seeming fault, you will not only acquit him\nof his supposed crime of dereliction of duty, but that his honor shall\nbe preserved unstained before his fellow-officers and men.\"\n\nThe proposition seemed honorable to the commandant, and he immediately\nreplied:\n\n\"I swear by my sword it shall be so.\"\n\n\"Then, sir, see before you the offender.  I am Charles Pimontel!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVI.\n\nRepentance.\n\n\nOn the road that led the traveller to the ancient village of Torre\ndel Greco, and about a mile from the populous parts of the city, there\nstood a neat little cottage.  In the front there was a flower garden,\nsmall but charmingly pretty; the doors and windows were surrounded\nwith a woodbine creeper that gave an air of comfort to the little\ndwelling.  The door was ever closed.  Few were seen to pass in and\nout, and no noise ever betrayed the presence of its inmates.\n\nHere for many years our young penitent Alvira passed a holy and solitary\nlife.  After the stirring scenes of the preceding chapters, Father\nFrancis procured from the military authorities for his Magdalen, as\nhe was wont to call her, the full pay of a captain as a retiring\npension.  This remarkable circumstance may be authenticated by reference\nto the military books still preserved in the archives of the Molo at\nNaples.  Her rank and pension were confirmed by the king.\n\nUnder the able direction of the man of God, Alvira gave herself to\nfull correspondence with the extraordinary graces offered by our blessed\nLord.  Her austerities and fervor increased until they reached the\ndegrees of heroic sanctity.  She knelt and wept for hours before her\ncrucifix; she slept on hard boards and only allowed herself sufficient\nto meet the demands of nature.  She lived on herbs, and the fast of\nLent was so severe that Father Francis saw a miraculous preservation.\nLong before daylight she knelt on the steps of the Gesu waiting for\nthe opening of the doors, and this austerity she never failed to\npractice in the midst of rain or cold, until her last illness chained\nher involuntarily to her couch, where her submission to the will of\nGod was equally meritorious.\n\nSeveral terrible scenes of judgement, sent by Almighty God on\nunrepentant sinners, had, in the very commencement of her conversion,\na most salutary influence on the feeble struggles of Alvira.  Her\nconfidence in the Blessed Virgin was much enhanced by a severe act\nof St. Francis towards one of the members of the Congregation of the\nMost Holy Mother.\n\nA young man of this congregation got suddenly rich, and, with wealth,\nself-conceit and pride entered his heart.  He considered it necessary,\nto preserve his respectability, to separate himself from the humble\nsociety he hitherto frequented, and cease to be a member of the\nCongregation of the Madonna, composed of industrious and virtuous\nyouths who labored honestly for their livelihood.  St. Francis, on\nhearing of this slight on the congregation and insult to Mary, was\nfired with a holy indignation.  He sought the young man, and rang in\nhis ears the prophetic warnings which, in the case of this great saint,\nwere never uttered in vain to the unheeding.  Again and again\nSt. Francis warned, but pride was still triumphant.  One Sunday\nafternoon, after the usual meeting of the confraternity, the saint\nwent to the alter of sodality; it was the altar of the Dolors.  Seven\ndaggers seemed to pierce the Virgin's heart.  Ascending the altar,\nhe cast a sorrowful glance on the weeping countenance of the Queen\nof Sorrows, and said:  \"Most Holy Virgin, this young man has been for\nyou a most acute sword, piercing your heart; behold, I will relieve\nyou of it.\"  So saying, he took one of the poniards from the statue,\nand at the same time announced to the members that the proud young\nman was expelled from the congregation.\n\nLet those who fancy that such reprobations have not a corresponding\necho in the judgements of God tremble in reading the effects of this\nsimple but terrible excommunication.\n\nLike sand through the perforated vessel, the young man's wealth passed\naway; one month found him a cringing debtor, another found him a\nbeggar, a third found him dying in a public institution, abandoned\nby God and man.\n\nOn another occasion Alvira was present when a terrible judgement of\nGod upon a hardened sinner thrilled the whole city with awe.\nSt. Francis was preaching in one of the streets during Lent.  He\nhappened to pause and address a crowd near the house of an impious,\nill conducted woman, who came immediately to her window to laugh and\nmock at the man of God.  Having gratified herself tot he disgust of\nthe crowd, she finally slammed to the window violently, uttering at\nthe same time some filthy and unbecoming remark.  St. Francis stood\nimmovable fro a moment; his eye was fixed on heaven; and then, in a\nvoice head half over the city, he cried out:  \"My God, how terrible\nare thy judgments!  That unfortunate woman has dropped dead.\"\n\nThe groans and confusion of the inmates soon convinced the crowd of\nthe awful fact, for the corpse of the hapless wretch was brought into\nthe street where it was exposed to the terrified people.\n\nThese and similar instances of the judgement of God witnessed by Alvira\nhad a salutary effect on her trembling soul.  The fear of God, which\nis the beginning of wisdom, erected its watch-tower around the citadel\nof her heart; the virtues, once entered, were not permitted to flee,\nand soon won for this penitent soul the sweets of the illuminative\ndegree of sanctity.\n\nSt. Francis, a master in the science of the saints, soon recognized\nthe extraordinary graces destined for this chosen soul.  Full of\ngratitude and love for God, he spared no effort to correspond with\nthe sublime destiny entrusted to him; hence in the after-history of\nthose two holy souls the marvels of virtue and sanctity intermingled,\nso that at times it would seem doubtful whether the miracles recorded\nwere given to the exalted sanctity and zeal of the holy priest or to\nthe weeping virgin penitent, so privileged and so loved in the forgiving\nmemory of God.\n\nOn one occasion a young mother lost her infant.  Death had stricken\nthe little flower ere it had blossomed.  The mother was poor and unable\nto bury the child.  With an unbounded confidence in the charity and\nzeal of St. Francis, the bright thought struck her:  If she could only\nget this good man interested in her behalf, all would be accomplished.\nAccordingly, she made for the church of the Gesu by daylight.  Only\none individual was before her waiting for the church to be opened.\nIt was Magdalen.  Even from Magdalen she concealed the object of her\nearly visit, and pressed closer to her heart the dead treasure she\nintended as a present for Father Francis.  The church opened; she stole\naround the dark aisles, whence the daylight had not yet banished the\nshades of night, and noiselessly approached the confessional of the\nholy man.  She placed the dead child on the seat, and hurried to some\nrecess of the great church, where she could watch the happy issue of\nthis ingenious mode of disposing of her child.  The early morning\nhours wore away, and at length the wished for moment came.  The vestry\ndoor is opened.  The tall, mortified form of St. Francis appeared at\nthe foot of the altar.  He prayed awhile, and rose to go to his\nconfessional.  But the young mother watched with her heart leaping to\nher mouth.  He did not go to his tribunal; he moved majestically down\nthe church, and came to Magdalen's corner where Alvira was wrapt in\nprayer.  He whispered something to her.  They prayed for a moment,\nthen Alvira flitted like a shadow through the dark aisles towards\nthe confessional of Father Francis.  She entered and took the infant\nchild in her arms.  The child was alive.  The mother came rushing\nfrom her hiding-place to claim the infant, and when she received it\ninto her embrace the man of God raised his index finger in the act\nof warning, and with a sweet, forgiving smile on his countenance,\nsaid to the young mother:  \"My child, don't put any more dead babies\nin my confessional.\"\n\nAlvira had to undergo a severe trial in the absence of Father Francis.\nHe was directed by his superiors to commence his missions in the country\ndistricts, and was virtually removed from Naples for some years.  Before\nleaving, he fortified his chosen children with salutary admonitions,\nbut for Alvira he had special words of encouragement and consolation.\nIt pleased God to let him know in her behalf that, in return for her\nsincere repentance and deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin, before\nher death three extraordinary favors would be conferred on her, which\nwould also be the warning of the setting sun of her career in life.\nAlvira treasured his words in her heart, and in deep humility wondered\nat the goodness of God.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVII.\n\nThe Privileges of Holy Souls.\n\n\nAn extraordinary miracle is said, in the life of St. Francis, to have\ntaken place in the house where Alvira was present.  St. Francis had\nan aged brother living in the city--a man of eminent sanctity, but\nsuffering much from his infirmities.  St. Francis prevailed on Alvira\nto attend him and nurse him in his illness.  He could not have been\ntrusted to more tender or willing hands.\n\nVirtue and affection lent their powerful aids to render Alvira a\ncharming nurse.  But her labor of love was not very protracted, for\nit pleased God to cast the last and fatal fever on Cataldus, the invalid\nbrother of the saint.  At the time the malady was increasing and death\nimminent, St. Francis was absent from the city on a mission to Recale,\na place about sixteen miles from Naples.  Cataldus prayed to be\npermitted to see his brother before death but the malady seemed to\nincrease so rapidly there was very slight probability of his return\nin time.\n\nAlvira had retired to an adjoining apartment to seek relief in prayer.\nShe suddenly heard some strange sounds in the room of her patient.\nShe flew towards the chamber, and there, to her astonishment, she\nbeheld St. Francis embracing his brother.\n\n\"Go,\" said the saintly man to the invalid--\"go with courage and\nconfidence whither God thy father calls thee, and where the saints\nawait thee.  Remember God is a good master, and know that in a short\ntime I will follow thee.\"\n\nThen drawing Alvira aside, he whispered to her:  \"My child, know that\nCataldus is going with rapid strides to eternity.  You must still\nassist him with love and patience.  To-night at four he will die.\nI must be away now, but I hope to see him again before he dies.\"\n\nHaving thus spoken, alone and, contrary to his custom, without any\none to accompany him, he left the house.  Cataldus, Alvira, and a\nservant in the house testified to having seen him in Naples in their\nhouse; the servant even testified that he entered through closed\ndoors; whilst two fathers who were with him at Recale gave sworn\ntestimony that St. Francis was with them at the very time he was\nseen and spoken to at Naples.\n\nAnd when the hour foreseen by this great saint, in which death was to\nplace his cold hand on the brow of Cataldus, was at hand, the couch\nof the dying was again blessed by his spirit; but Alvira did not on\nthis occasion see him, but she saw the recognition that cast a beam\nof joy over the face of the dying man, and she heard the sweet accents\nof consolation the saint was permitted to impart.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVIII.\n\nA Vision of Purgatory--A Dear One Saved.\n\n\nLike lengthening shadows of evening creeping over the silent ruin, death\nwas fast drawing the shades of its final night over the austerities\nand the virtues of Alvira.  The promises of St. Francis filled her\nheart with a cup of joy that rarely falls to the lot of mortals this\nside of the grave.\n\nVespers are finished at the Gesu; the organ is silent, the crowd have\ndeparted, and, in the mellow twilight of an autumn eve, we discern\nonly a few pious souls crouched behind the pillars, or pouring forth\ntheir last fervent aspirations before some favorite altar or saintly\nshrine.  Soon all have left, and the silence of the abandoned sanctuary\nshrouds the fabric in greater solemnity.  The aromatic incense still\nfloats in nebulous veils around the tabernacle.\n\nA loud breathing, an expression of joy from a dark recess, announced\nthe presence of some one still in the church.  The sounds came from\nthe quarter known to the pious frequenters of the church as Magdalen's\ncorner, so named because there was near to it an altar dedicated to\nthe great penitent St. Magdalen, and because here St. Francis' Magdalen\nspent long hours in tears and prayer.  On the evening in question\nAlvira had remained longer than usual to commune with Almighty God.\nIt was a festival day, and her soul felt all the glow of fervor and\nspiritual joy which at times wraps the pious spirit into foretastes\nof celestial happiness.  The hours passed swiftly by, for fervent\nprayer is not tedious to the loving.\n\nShe pondered in her mind what could be the graces or favors promised\nher in the last interview with her spiritual director.  Her humility\nhad not dared to seek favors; she was still overwhelmed with the\nthought of the bitter past; more time for repentance would be the\nsignal favor she would venture to solicit from the God she had so\nmuch offended.\n\nYet the mercy and goodness of God are more mysterious to us mortals\nwhen we consider them lavished in extraordinary munificence on the\nsouls of poor sinners.  When we feel crushed to the earth in our\nunworthiness, the forgiving spirit of God lifts us up and pours around\nus consolations which are the privilege of the innocent.  Thus the\nhumble Alvira little dreamt what might be the grand consolations\ndestined for her; but the time of their fulfilment has come, and we\nfind her startled from an ecstasy in the church in which one of the\npromised favors was bestowed on this child of grace.  She described\nto Father Francis what happened with many tears of joy.\n\nWhilst wrapt in prayer in the lonely moments that followed the\nBenediction of the Most Holy Sacrament and the closing of the church\ndoors, she suddenly saw the altar and sanctuary disappear, and in their\nstead a luminous bank of moving clouds; they were white as the\nsnow-drift, and crystallized in a flood of light like Alpine peaks\nin the winter sunshine.\n\nThese clouds moved rapidly before her astonished gaze, occasionally\nshe saw through their rents a tinge of red flame that glowed in the\nfleecy mist like the crimson linings of sunset.  The brighter clouds\ngradually faded; the flames became fiercer and more distinct; they\nseemed to leap in fury around the altar and sanctuary.  Alvira\nstruggled in doubt for a moment.  Perhaps a real conflagration was\nconsuming the tabernacle.  A scream of agony was already on her lips,\nwhen the scene glided into a still more vivid reality, leaving no\ndoubt as to its character.  In the burning element human beings\nappeared writhing in pain; angels of dazzling brightness floated over\nthe fire, and every moment caught the outstretched arms of some\nfortunate soul whose purgatorial probation had terminated; the angel\nwould carry the soul to a distant sphere of brightness whither\nAlvira's weak mortal gaze could not follow.\n\nSuddenly there darted from the far light an angel clothed with the\nbrilliancy of the sun.  With the speed of lightning he plunged far\ndown the purgatory fire; his brightness was so great that Alvira\ncould follow him even through the flames.  There the angel found a\nyoung, beautiful soul, deep in agony, clothed with crimson fire.  A\nsmile of ineffable joy lit up the countenance of the sufferer--the\nmessage from heaven was understood.  The angel lifted this soul from\nthe fire, and, pausing for a moment on the peak of a lambent flame,\nthe angelic deliverer and the liberated soul, now became angelic\nin brilliancy, paused to look and smile on Alvira.\n\nHer heart leaped, her soul trembled.  She recognized the features.\nIn a convulsive effort to utter the loved name of Aloysia, the vision\npassed away, and she found herself in the dark church and on the cold\nflags, weeping away the overflow of a heart too full of joy.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIX.\n\nUnexpected Meeting.\n\n\nLate on a cold night in the winter of 1706 a sick-call came to the\nJesuit college attached to the Gesu.  Alvira Cassier was ill, and\nrequested the attendance of one of the fathers.\n\nSome months had passed since the consoling vision in which she saw\nthe purified soul of Aloysia carried to a crown of immortal bliss.\nSince then the great St. Francis had passed to his crown.  His holy\nspirit hovered in protecting love over Alvira.  She recurred to him\nin her troubles, and always with remarkable success.  Miracles of\ncures and conversion, effected through the humble prayers of the\npenitent and the powerful intercession of the deceased apostle, are\nregistered in the great book of life, to be read on the great\naccounting-day.\n\nAlvira sighed over the prolongation of her exile.  Her heart longed\nto be with Christ; she soared in spirit over the abyss that separated\nher from the object she loved.\n\nYet two more signs were to announce the happy moment of her freedom.\nShe knew the fate of Aloysia, raised from the searching flame and\nintroduced to the saints, was the first of these favors promised\nby St. Francis.  The other was equally extraordinary.\n\nThe illness of Alvira caused a sigh of regret at the Jesuit College.\nEvery one whose heart was interested in the glory of God would have\nreason to sigh over her lost example, her influence over sinners, and\nthe edification of her exalted virtues.\n\nA priest is wrapped in his cloak; he carries the most Holy Sacrament\nand the holy oils.  A levite accompanies him, carrying a lamp and\nringing a bell.  Unmindful of the inclemency of the weather, they\nmove on through the abandoned streets, now filled by crowds of unseen\nangels, who take the place of man and honor the Holy of Holies.\n\nThe priest is a young Frenchman who has just come to Naples.  To\nconfer a favor on Alvira, the superior sent him to St. Francis's\npenitent that she might have the consolation of her own language\nat the trying hour of her death.  He is a tall, thin figure on the\ndecline of manhood; in the graceful outline of features sweet and\nattractive we read the marks of much mortification.  A halo of religion\nand sanctity envelopes him with that reverential awe we give to true\nvirtue.\n\nHe has entered the room.  Alvira starts.\n\nShe has seen that face before; that noble brow; that lofty mien;\nthat irresistible sweetness of look.  He is some acquaintance, perhaps\nmet casually in the rambles of youthful folly.  Reverence for the\nBlessed Sacrament banished further curiosity, and Alvira, with\nclosed eyes and hands folded on her crucifix, joined in the solemn\nprayers recited on such occasions.\n\nWhen all the prescribed ceremonies were completed, the good priest\ndrew near the couch of the suffering invalid, and, allowing a moment\nfor a relaxation of thought and for conversation, mildly enquired if\nshe suffered much pain.\n\n\"So they tell me you have come from Paris, my child,\" we fancy we hear\nthe good father commencing a conversation that leads to a strange\ndiscovery.\n\n\"Yes, father, 'tis my native city.\"\n\n\"And what was your family name?\"\n\n\"Cassier.\"\n\n\"Cassier!\" replied the priest, with a thrill of surprise.  \"Did he\nlive in Rue de Seine?\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"You had a sister?\"\n\n\"Yes; but she is now in heaven.  She was killed on Mount Vesuvius.\"\nAlvira wept.\n\nA startling suspicion had crept over the good priest.  Was it possible\nthat the invalid sinking into eternity in a sunset of sanctity and of\nheroic penance, formerly the chivalrous captain of Vesuvian fame,\nwas no other than his own sister?\n\n\"And what became of your brother?\" asked the Jesuit after a pause,\nand looking anxiously into Alvira's emaciated countenance.\n\n\"Ah! father,\" she replied, \"I would give worlds to know.  About thirty\nyears ago, when our home was comfortable, he suddenly disappeared\nfrom us; no one could tell what became of him; we knew he was called\nby God to a holier life, and it was our impression at the time he\nfled to join some strict religious order.  Poor dear Aloysia and\nmyself used to pain him by turning his pious intentions to ridicule.\nHis disappearance broke my poor mother's heart, for she died very\nsoon afterwards.\"\n\nA long, deep silence ensued.  Pere Augustin--for that was his name\nin religion--held his hands clasped up at his lips whilst Alvira was\nspeaking.  He remained motionless; his eyes were fixed on a spot on\nthe floor.  It was evident a struggle was going on within him.  There\ncould be no longer any doubt, and he was puzzled whether he should\ndeclare himself at once to be the lost Louis Marie, or bide his time\nand break it gently to her.  As if seeking more time for deliberation,\nhe asked her another question  \"And, my child, what became of your\nfather?\"\n\nAh! how little did he dream of the wound he was tearing open.  His\nenquiry was the signal for a new burst of grief from the broken-hearted\nAlvira.  She buried her face in the pillow and wept violently.  She\nremained so for several minutes.  This made Pere Augustin determine\nhis course of action.  As he had caused her so much pain, he must now\nconsole her by letting her know who he is.  Drawing nearer to her, he\nbade her be consoled, for he had some good news to give her; and\nAlvira, after a great effort, raised her head and said:\n\n\"It is kind of you father, very kind of you indeed, to take interest\nin my affairs; but perhaps, as you are acquainted with Paris and\nbelong to the Society of Jesus, you many know something of my brother.\nPoor Louis Marie!  I should like to know if he is well, and happy,\nand good.  Do tell me, father, if you know anything of him.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" answered the father quickly.\n\n\"Is he alive?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"And happy?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\n\"Here!\" cried Louis Marie, bursting into tears--\"here, within the grasp\nof your hand.\"\n\nCould joy be greater?  Those two holy souls blended into one.  Like\nBenedict and Scholastica, they wept and smiled together in alternate\nraptures of joy and grief.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXX.\n\nConclusion.\n\n\n  Now reft of all, faint, feeble, prest with age,\n  We mark her feelings in the last great stage;\n  The feverish hopes, the fears, the cares of life,\n  No more oppress her with torturing strife;\n  The chivalrous spirit of her early day\n  Has passed with beauty and with youth away.\n  As oft the traveller who beholds the sun\n  Sinking before him ere yet his journey's done,\n  Regrets in vain to lose its noontide power,\n  Yet hails the coolness of the evening hour,\n  She feels a holy and divine repose\n  Rest on her spirit in the twilight close;\n  Although her passions ruled in their might,\n  Now vanquished, brighter burns the inward light,\n  Guiding the spirit by its sacred ray\n  To cast its mortal oil and cares away,\n  And list its summons to eternal day.\n\n\nTossed on a restless ocean, and surviving a long and stormy voyage,\nhow the sight of the verdant hills and spires of the nearing port\nmust cheer the wearied mariner!  Joy has its sunbeams to light up\nevery countenance.  Merry the song that keeps tune with the revolving\ncapstan.  Old memories are awakened and dormant affections roused;\nthe husband, the father, the exile, each has a train of though laden\nwith bright anticipations.  Fancy and hope hasten to wave their magic\nwings over the elated heart, and contribute the balm of ideal charms\nto make even one moment of mortal life a happiness without alloy.\n\nThe wearied mariner returning home, quaffing a cup of joy, is a faint\nbut truthful simile to represent the pious soul in sight of the port\nof eternal bliss, where loved ones are hailing from afar their welcome\nto the successful mariner from the troubled sea of time.  Life has\nits storms and its calms, its casualties and dangers; it also has the\nbright twilight in the shadow of those eternal hills where existence\nis immortal and joy beatific and unclouded.\n\nAlvira, the heroine of our sketch, is now the faithful soul standing\non the bark in view of her eternal home.\n\nThe consolations promised by her sainted guardian have twice tolled\nthe death knell; once more some great joy will strike the last fibre\nof her heart long tuned to spiritual happiness, and will break the\nlast chain that imprisons a spirit longing to soar on high.\n\nIn the deceptive phases of the consumptive malady she rallied at times;\nshe felt stronger--would venture out to the homes of the poor, and\nfaint at the alter of Jesus.  In her weakness she did not moderate\nher austerities, save where the express command of her spiritual\ndirector manifested to her the will of God.  Her little cottage was\nsurrounded daily by the poor and sick, who were her friends, and many\nand sincere were the blessings invoked over their benefactress.\n\nLong and interesting were her conversations with her brother Louis.\nHer history as known to herself must have been replete with many\nstriking events besides those we have caught up from a scanty tradition\nand a brief pamphlet biography.  How the secrets of her rambles in\ndisguise must have brought the smile and the blush to the countenance\nof her simple-minded and sainted brother!\n\nIn deep and natural fraternal affection, which is more powerful when\nmellowed by virtue, Pere Augustin saw the hand of death making each\nday new traces on the frame of Alvira.  The hectic flush, the frequent\nfaintings, and the cold, icy grasp of her hand told the energy of\nthe poison that gnawed at the vital cords.  Sweet and gentle words\nof encouragement ever flowed from his lips.  With eye and finger ever\nturning towards heaven, whither his own soul yearned, he calmed the\nanxious and penitent spirit of Alvira, who still feared her repentance\nwas incomplete.\n\nShe received Holy Communion every day from the hands of her brother.\n\nWhat ecstasies of grateful love filled her breast when preparing for\nthose blissful moments of union with our Blessed Lord!  Deep and\neloquent the mysterious breathings of the pure, loving heart.  It has\na language known and understood only by angels.  As the sun melts the\nrocky iceberg, the coldest heart melts under the loving, burning\nSun of the most Holy Eucharist.\n\nAt length the bark is anchored in the port of rest; Alvira is summoned\nto her crown.\n\nThe midnight of July 16, 1717, finds her in her agony; the blest candle\nis lighted; the faithful brother priest is kneeling by her bed; the\nsolemn wail of the privileged few of the grateful poor is carried in\nmournful cadence from the chamber of death.\n\nYet the bell has not tolled the third stroke of consolation.  Could\nshe have misunderstood the prophetic voice of her sainted Father\nFrancis, who knew the secrets of God in her behalf?  But no; the favor\nwill come--the last crowning, ineffable favor will come; it is at hand.\n\nAlvira has opened her eyes.  She calls her brother near; with a smile,\nthe sweetest that ever lit up those expressive features, she told him\nwhat the favor would be.  Father Francis and the Blessed Virgin would\nsee her before she should die.\n\nPere Augustin believes the shock of approaching dissolution has weakened\nher reasoning faculty; he gently chides her, whispers some sweet\nthought of humility, and breathes the holy name that banishes\ntemptation.\n\nBut, lo! Alvira's features have changed; a glow of ecstatic beauty\nhas suffused around her; the light of another land is shed on her\ncouch.  Recognition is read on her looks.\n\nPere Augustin, whose innocence and virtue entitled him to understand\nthe privileges of the saints, saw the splendor of a heavenly light\nthat filled the room, and heard from Alvira's lips expressions that\nleft no doubt on his mind of the promised visit of celestial beings.\n\nThe light faded, and from the feeble glare of the candle of death he\nsaw the holy spirit of his sister had fled; the sweetness of heavenly\njoy still played on her marble features, and the smile that greeted\nthe heavenly visitors still rested on her lips.\n\nPere Augustin stood over the couch he had bedewed with tears, and\ntaking a long and affectionate glance at the hollowed form of his\nrepentant sister, turned towards the weeping people; he raised his\nhand towards heaven, and solemnly announced the event that gave a\nfestival to the angels.  His voice faltered; he pronounced a short\nand eloquent panegyric--\"A saint is dead!\"\n\nThe tableau is worth remembering; 'tis the last beautiful scene in\nthe eventful career of Maria Alvira Cassier!","title":"Alvira: The Heroine of Vesuvius","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":35277}