"formed to adorn it. If you have a "wish to know how far I have succeeded, be at midnight in the chapel,

where you will see your ever de"voted

Agatha kissed the lines, which affor ed her real delight; she ommed the tardy moments as they slowly pazand by; and when at length the appointed period arrived, she descended from the chamber, and entered the chapel.

The Signor Ferdinando was not there; and anxiously waiting his coming, she leaned against the skreen, leavH 6

ing

ing her lamp at some distance on the steps of the altar. Soon, however, she heard the echoes of hasty paces, and a man,

muffled up in a clock carrying a lamp

approached the skreen.

near it, he let fall his

When he came

garment, and

Agatha beheld her expected friend.

Lovely Signora," said he, "thus far have I penetrated into this gloomy abode of superstition and horror, so unfit a residence for you. But alas! no way can I find to enter the convent. This cruel skreen divides us. Could I force the iron gate, even at this moment you might escape. Perhaps you may find some means to open it."

"Alas!

"Alas! Signor," said Agatha, "I know of none; but fortune, which hitherto has attended you, may not desert us. I will, however, make every -effort to procure my wished-for enlargment from this dreary place. My gratitude, Signor, to you is indeed great; your disinterested goodness must ever claim my warmest thanks."

"And does not the beautiful Agatha," said Ferdinando, "perceive that it is love the most ardent which impels From the first moment I saw

me.

you, I devoted myself to your service. Continually have I lamented your cruel destiny, and continually have I endeavoured to seek to alter it."

The

The counterance of Agatha, covered with blushes, shewed that the declartion of Ferdinando was not unpleasant to her ears. She raised her eyes on him-they met his enamoured gazethey spoke more than the tongue could ever express the fire of love was in them.

Ferdinando with rapturous sensations rivetted his eyes on her beauties. A silence ensued, but it was a silence which expressed the sentiments of Agatha, and the unspeakable sensations of Ferdinando, who at length interupted it by declarations of the tenderest. attachment to that lovely female.

Thus

Thus passed away the now fleeting hours, and at length the Signor Ferdinando seeing the grey dawn peeping through the casements of the chapel, was oblige to depart; but not before he had imprinted on the white hand of Agatha, which she held out to him through the grating, a thousand kisses, and swore on it an eternal adoration.

Slowly they withdrew, often turning back to gaze on each other, for the passion that reigned in the breast of one existed with equal strength in the bosom of the other; but it was that passion which ceases to exist the moment it has attained its object.

As