tive, had compelled this
sacrifice. Amid the crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian
garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless
the secret lover from whom she was forever to be separated. My
indignation rose as I noted the malignant expression painted on the
countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession
arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last
time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal
threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in
with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment
at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he
mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured
to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of
her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the
bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of
its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I
saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the
funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world;
her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the
plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved,
without a tear; the lover--no--my imagination refused to portray
the anguish of the lover--there the picture remained a blank.

"After a time the throng again poured forth and dispersed various
ways, to enjoy the light of the sun and mingle with the stirring
scenes of life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was no
longer there. The door of the convent closed that severed her from
the world forever. I saw the father and the lover issue forth; they
were in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement in his
gesticulations; I expected some violent termination to my drama;
but an angle of a building interfered and closed the scene. My eye
afterwards was frequently turned to that convent with painful
interest. I remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from
a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, 'the
unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces
the street below in unavailing anguish.'

"--The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in