ated with their faces to the foe; and when Muza
came, the last--his cimiter shivered to the hilt,--he had scarcely
breath to command the gates to be closed and the portcullis lowered, ere
he fell from his charger in a sudden and deadly swoon, caused less by
his exhaustion than his agony and shame. So ended the last battle fought
for the Monarchy of Granada!

CHAPTER II. THE NOVICE.

It was in one of the cells of a convent renowned for the piety of its
inmates and the wholesome austerity of its laws that a young novice sat
alone. The narrow casement was placed so high in the cold grey wall as
to forbid to the tenant of the cell the solace of sad or the distraction
of pious thoughts, which a view of the world without might afford.
Lovely, indeed, was the landscape that spread below; but it was barred
from those youthful and melancholy eyes: for Nature might tempt to a
thousand thoughts, not of a tenor calculated to reconcile the heart to
an eternal sacrifice of the sweet human ties. But a faint and partial
gleam of sunshine broke through the aperture and made yet more cheerless
the dreary aspect and gloomy appurtenances of the cell. And the young
novice seemed to carry on within herself that struggle of emotions
without which there is no victory in the resolves of virtue: sometimes
she wept bitterly, but with a low, subdued sorrow, which spoke rather of
despondency than passion; sometimes she raised her head from her breast,
and smiled as she looked upward, or as her eyes rested on the crucifix
and the death's head that were placed on the rude table by the pallet
on which she sat. They were emblems of death here, and life hereafter,
which, perhaps, afforded to her the sources of a twofold consolation.

She was yet musing, when a slight tap at the door was heard, and the
abbess of the convent appeared.

"Daughter," said she, "I have brought thee the comfort of a sacred
visitor. The Queen of Spain, whose pious tenderness is maternally
anxious for thy full contentment with thy lot, has sent hither a holy
friar, whom she deems more soothing in his counsels than our brother
Tomas, whose ardent zeal often terrifies those whom his honest spirit
only desires to purify and guide. I will leave him with thee. May
the saints bless his ministry!" So saying the abbess retired from the
threshold, making way for a form in the garb of a monk, with the hood
drawn over the face. The monk bowed his head meekly, advanced into the
ce