d timid and weak; believe it no more! We tremble at a
spider, but the black monster, corruption, we hug to our arms in sport!
This for your edification, father. Your Louisa is merry.

MILLER. I had rather you wept. It would, please me better.

LOUISA. How I will outwit him, father! How I shall cheat the tyrant!
Love is more crafty than malice, and bolder--he knew not that, the man of
the unlucky star! Oh! they are cunning so long as they have but to do
with the head; but when they have to grapple with the heart the villains
are at fault. He thought to seal his treachery with an oath! Oaths,
father, may bind the living, but death dissolves even the iron bonds of
the sacrament! Ferdinand will learn to know his Louisa. Father, will
you deliver this letter for me? Will you do me the kindness?

MILLER. To whom, my child?

LOUISA. Strange question! Infinitude and my heart together had not
space enough for a single thought but of him. To whom else should I
write?

MILLER (anxiously). Hear me, Louisa! I must read this letter!

LOUISA. As you please, father! but you will not understand it. The
characters lie there like inanimate corpses, and live but for the eye of
love.

MILLER (reading). "You are betrayed, Ferdinand! An unparalleled piece
of villany has dissolved the union of our hearts; but a dreadful vow
binds my tongue, and your father has spies stationed upon every side.
But, if thou hast courage, my beloved, I know a place where oaths no
longer bind, and where spies cannot enter." (MILLER stops short, and
gazes upon her steadfastly.)

LOUISA. Why that earnest look, father? Read what follows.

MILLER. "But thou must be fearless enough to wander through a gloomy
path with no other guides than God and thy Louisa. Thou must have no
companion but love; leave behind all thy hopes, all thy tumultuous
wishes--thou wilt need nothing on this journey but thy heart. Darest
thou come; then set out as the bell tolls twelve from the Carmelite
Tower. Dost thou fear; then erase from the vocabulary of thy sex's
virtues the word courage, for a maiden will have put thee to shame."
(MILLER lays down the letter and fixes his eyes upon the ground in deep
sorrow. At length he turns to LOUISA, and says, in a low, broken voice)
Daughter, where is that place?

LOUISA. Don't you know it, father? Do you really not know it? 'Tis
strange! I have described it unmistakably! Ferdinand will not fail to
find it.

MILLER. Pray speak plainer!