nun.

the Signor come to the door and cautiously look around him; he then went back, and soon after appeared with the Hastily they left the corridore, and descending the stairs, the monk, who followed them at a distance, saw the nun open the gate in the skreen, and when her lover was gone she locked it, and tremblingly retraced her steps toward her cell.

t

At the foot of the stairs that led to the chambers belonging to the sisters of Santa Catherina stood the monk. Agatha, when she beheld his tall figure, and found that her guilty acts were discovered, trembled with sudden horror as the leaf of the aspen to the restless G 3 breeze

breeze of night. She uttered a faint scream, and was sinking on the floor, when Bernardo hastily rushed forward, and caught her in his arms.

He threw back the veil which covered her countenance, and as the rays of the lamp shone on it he gazed with unsated delight on her lovely features, while a flush crimsoned his checks, and his heart beat with increasing violence against his side.

He however checked the emotions he felt, though with great difficulty, while he thus questioned the nun:

Daughter,

66

Daughter, who was it that but now I saw in company with thee?"

The nun tremblingly raised her eyes on the monk, who now held her arm. She beheld herself irrevocably lost if she could not cause a sensation of pity for her to arise in his breast; and in a supplicating voice she replied:

Forced

is Holy father, have mercy on me. I acknowledge my crime. within these walls by the cruel order of a father, because my heart was susceptible of the passions of love, I did not conceive myself bound to obey the rigid rules of a convent. As yet too the last ceremony has not been performed.

My lover has contrived to obtain an entrance to the chapel, and I have admitted him into the convent; but, father, if ever your heart felt the soft passion of love, if ever you knew the pangs of parting with the object you held dearest on earth, I conjure you, by the remembrance of those emotions, to pity my situation."

The monk from the violence of his feelings was silent; his cowl he had thrown back, and Agatha raising her supplicating eyes to his countenance, read there that he not only forgave, but that the beauties of her person had excited his admiration.

The

The terror which had agitated her by degrees subsided, and a softer sensation assumed their place; the pallid hue which usually overspread the cheeks of the monk had given way to a crimson tint, his eyes were fixed on her, there was a languishing expression in them, his other features were handsome, and his years seemed not greatly to exceed her own.

What," said the monk in a softened voice, "what if I were to conceal the knowledge I have obtained of thy proceedings out of pity for your situation. I demand but one thing in return."