through a
convent, my brothers, where miserable wretches go who have neither the
spirit to serve the Devil wholly, nor the patience to serve God; there
be many shaven crowns that gnash their teeth in hell to-night,--many a
monk's robe is burning on its owner in living fire, and the devils call
him a fool for choosing to be damned in so hard a way. 'Could you not
come here by some easier road than a cloister?' they ask. 'If you must
sell your soul, why did you not get something for it?' Brethren, there
be devils waiting for some of us; they are laughing at your paltry
shifts and evasions, at your efforts to make things easy,--for they know
how it will all end at last. Rouse yourselves! Awake! Salvation is no
easy matter,--nothing to be got between sleeping and waking. Watch,
pray, scourge the flesh, fast, weep, bow down in sackcloth, mingle your
bread with ashes, if by any means ye may escape the everlasting fire!"

"Bless me!" said Father Anselmo, when the services were over, casting
a half-scared glance after the retreating figure of the Superior as he
left the chapel, and drawing a long breath; "it's enough to make one
sweat to hear him go on. What has come over him? Anyhow, I'll give
myself a hundred lashes this very night: something must be done."

"Well," said another, "I confess I did hide a cold wing of fowl in the
sleeve of my gown last fast-day. My old aunt gave it to me, and I was
forced to take it for relation's sake; but I'll do so no more, as I'm a
living sinner. I'll do a penance this very night."

Father Johannes stood under one of the arches that looked into the
gloomy garden, and, with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his
cold, glittering eye fixed stealthily now on one and now on another,
listened with an ill-disguised sneer to these hasty evidences of fear
and remorse in the monks, as they thronged the corridor on the way to
their cells. Suddenly turning to a young brother who had lately joined
the convent, he said to him,--

"And what of the pretty Clarice, my brother?"

The blood flushed deep into the pale cheek of the young monk, and his
frame shook with some interior emotion, as he answered,--

"She is recovering."

"And she sent for thee to shrive her?"

"My God!" said the young man, with an imploring, wild expression in his
dark eyes, "she did; but I would not go."

"Then Nature is still strong," said Father Johannes, pitilessly eying
the young man.

"When will it ever die?" s