she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister, Madonna, is oftentimes
stormy and frantic; raging in the highest against heaven; and demanding
back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never clamours, never defies,
dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers
is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is
in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight.
Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate
as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to
his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the
bondsman to the oar in Mediterranean galleys, of the English criminal in
Norfolk island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet
far-off England, of the baffled penitent reverting his eye for ever upon
a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar overthrown of some past
and bloody sacrifice, on which altar no oblations can now be availing,
whether towards pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation that
he might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the tropical
sun with timid reproach, as he points with one hand to the earth, our
general mother, but for _him_ a stepmother, as he points with the other
hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but against _him_ sealed and
sequestered;[13]--every woman sitting in darkness, without love to
shelter her head, or hope to illumine her solitude, because the
heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature germs of holy affections,
which God implanted in her womanly bosom, having been stifled by social
necessities, now burn sullenly to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst
the ancients;--every nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked
kinsmen, whom God will judge;--every captive in every dungeon;--all that
are betrayed, and all that are rejected; outcasts by traditionary law,
and children of _hereditary_ disgrace--all these walk with "Our Lady of
Sighs." She also carries a key; but she needs it little. For her kingdom
is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem, and the houseless vagrant of every
clime. Yet in the very highest ranks of man she finds chapels of her
own; and even in glorious England there are some that, to the world,
carry their heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet secretly have
received her mark upon their foreheads.

But the third sister, who is also the youngest----! Hush! whisper,
whilst we talk of _