the necessity of a public avowal of her conversion, and pointed out an approaching festival of the Church as the most fitting opportunity to prove the sincerity of her profession. She would fain have waited for Frank's arrival. The probability indeed now was that he would come before the day mentioned, and there could be no harm in her previous preparation for a ceremony which she felt convinced his liberal mind would not only not object to, but (such is the force of self-delusion) even approve. He had often spoken to her of the necessity of religious sincerity; and what could be a greater proof of it than the ordeal she was about to undergo?

"The day at length arrived, but no Frank Townshend. It was too late to put off the ceremonial, for which great preparations had been made, and the morning of St. Mark saw Alice Townshend received a faithful child of the Catholic Church in the splendid building dedicated to the tutelar saint of Venice. The rest of that day George was gloomy, Father Francis reserved, Alice serious, Hawkhurst in the highest spirits. He had some time previously made a second offer to Alice, and had been refused distinctly and for ever.

"On the following morning they were sitting together on one of those broad balconies which overlook the Grand Canal; the Priest was alluding to the vows which Alice had yesterday undertaken, and descanting upon the extent and importance of the Church's authority. And what think you, reverend Father,' asked Hawkhurst, as if half in jest, of a heretic husband for the fair penitent?" Alice changed colour for an instant, and again recovered herself. 'St. Mark forfend,' exclaimed the aged man, that she should so desecrate her faithful soul as to put even its outward covering into the hands of the faithless; but thou, my son, hast been too well

nurtured within that holy pale as to be numbered among the lost sheep of the true fold, though I would thou wast more frequent at the mass and the confessional.'

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"O Father,' said Hawkhurst lightly, you mistake me, I speak not for myself; but if there be any other And if there be,' said George interrupting him, there is no law of the Church so strict as to prevent such a union, though it may be that it recommends it not.' 'Right,' answered the Priest, thou art a likely clerk, young man, and if thou prosecutest thy studies in our faith thou mayst be e'en brought thyself to the same acknowledgement of the truth as thy sister.' "But if that heretic,' asked Hawkhurst with a malicious smile, should be a cousin? Ah, then,' replied the priestly man, 'the case is altered indeed; on no point is Holy Church more clear and decided than in that. Incest! rank incest! Si quis intra gradus prohibitos scienter-Hawkhurst shrieked a fiendish laugh. Jabber not thy Latin, old man, it may be to them no better than an Ave or a Pater Noster; tell her, tell them both, in a tongue they understand that it cannot, must not, shall not be:' and turning to Alice, 'If I cannot gain thee, he shall not.'

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'Holy Virgin! what aileth thee, my child?' cried out the Father, regardless of Hawkhurst's interruption, for Alice had fainted at her brother's feet.

"Villain!' exclaimed George Townshend, 'this is a deep-laid plot of thine; but tell me, Father, though I free thee not wholly from suspicion, this marriage is a matter that can be somehow compromised?' 'Indeed not,' responded the old man, I would not risk the displeasure of the Holy See to apply in behalf of one so lately sworn to every ordinance of the Church. Trust me, youth, it is too true; but if this fair lady hath left

in England any such attachment, time and distance-' 'Pshaw ! dotard, I stop not to argue here. Hawkhurst, I would speak with you apart.'

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"They entered the room, but whether they remained there Alice knew not. When, however, she recovered she found herself alone with Father Francis in the balcony, and immediately she began to question him on the certainty of what he had before asserted. Daughter,' he replied, the Church but echoes the word of God in her ordinances; she cannot diminish aught from what she reads there.' But I was ignorant, father, of the law; I knew not how strict- What!' interrupted the old man, would you then, had you known it, have hesitated to have been received into her holy pale? Was the law of flesh so little quelled within thee as to give up all thy hope of salvation for this fond and unlawful union?'

6

"Alice was staggered, and knew not how to answer him. 'But you are too hard upon me, good pastor; surely there is a dispensing power in him who holds the keys to loosen as well as bind.' There have indeed been cases, my child, in which kings and great men, regardless of the Church and godless, have gained, much against the Holy Father's will, dispensations in cases such as these; but for a humble individual like yourself, and one whose probation is hardly yet over, who would make such application? Nor would you indeed, if a sincere and not merely nominal Catholic, wish to force thy own conscience and that of others to make or grant the request.'

"Alice paused for a long time in deep meditation; at length she firmly spoke out; Say, father, that as a true Catholic I cannot ask it, and I have done.' 'Indeed then, daughter, I tell thee, as one whose con

science is in my hand, that thou canst not.' The poor girl burst into a flood of tears, but when she recovered she was calm, composed, and resolute.

"Father Francis rose to take his leave; she was accompanying him to the door which led from the balcony to the room, when a voice below attracted her attention. A gondola glided to the steps of the hotel; a light figure bounded out: it was Frank Townshend. Another moment and he was in the room,- Alice, cousin Alice!' and he was in her arms.

"The Padre looked on with some anxiety and alarm ; he heard the word of relationship pronounced, and he saw the rest. He began to fear for the constancy of his convert. 'Young man,' he exclaimed, "if thy embraces are those of a brother, let me not interrupt such tokens of affection; but if, as I judge from their warmth, they imply a future closer bond than that of cousinship, refrain from encouraging the hope of so impossible an

event.'

"The surprise and indignation with which Frank turned round on this interruption was great and violent. He suspected that this was the Father Francis who had gained so much ascendancy over Alice's mind, but he did not as yet know the whole or see the consequences. The altercation, as may be supposed, ran high, and the last thing done was to explain the real state of their present position.

"While the dispute was yet proceeding, the door opened, and a messenger running in out of breath could not explain his message before the lifeless body of George Townshend was brought into the room. The case was clear enough. He had fallen in a sword duel with Hawkhurst, pierced through the heart. The murderer, for such I must call him, had fled, it was said to offer himself to the French army.

"Of the rest I know little. There is, I believe, no doubt that Alice remained true to her vow and her confessor. It is reported that she retired to a sisterhood near Florence, though she never took the veil; and the following epitaph, copied from a plain marble slab in the chapel of the convent, seems to confirm the statement.

"Frank Townshend entered into the English service, and it is reported that he and Hawkhurst met and fell at the battle of Waterloo. Staunton Priors has never since been inhabited; the last time I passed by the road, the roof of the house had fallen in not long before, and the whole place presented no inadequate a representation of the ruined fortunes of the family who once possessed it."