saw, yet with a faint coloring playing to and from it, as influences
came in from the outer world. Her eyes were turned in upon it in lost
contemplation. But suddenly a new thought broke upon me. I saw my
image, but it was not I, as I looked to myself. The type of my
countenance was there; but, oh, transformed to an ideal, such as I
now, for the first time, saw possible--ennobled in every defective
line--purified of its taint from worldliness--inspired with high
aspirations--cleared of what it had become cankered with, in its
transmission through countless generations since first sent into the
world, and restored to a likeness of the angel of whose illuminated
lineaments it was first a copy. So thought Stephania of me. Thus did
she believe I truly was. Oh! blessed, and yet humiliating, trust of
woman! Oh! comparison of true and ideal, at which spirits must look
out of heaven, and of which they must long, with aching pity, to make
us thus rebukingly aware!

* * * * *

I felt myself withdrawing from Stephania's presence. There were tears
between us, which I could not see. I strove to remain, but a stronger
power than my will was at work within me. I felt my heart swell with a
gasp, as if death were bearing out of it the principle of life; and my
head dropped on the pillow of my bed.

"Good night, my son," said the low voice of Father Ludovic, "I have
willed that you should remember what you have seen. Be worthy of her
love, for there are few like her."

He closed the door, and as the glide of his sandals died away in the
echoing cloisters, I leaned forth to spread my expanding heart in the
upward and boundless light of the moon--for I seemed to wish never
again to lose in the wasteful forgetfulness of sleep, the
consciousness that I was loved by Stephania.

* * * * *

I was journeying the next day, alone, toward Venice. I had left
written adieux for the party at Vallambrosa, pleading to my friends an
unwillingness to bear the pain of a formal separation. Betwixt
midnight and morning, however, I had written a parting letter for
Stephania, which I had committed to the kind envoying of Father
Ludovic, and thus it ran:--

"When you read this, Stephania, I shall be alone
with the thought of you, traveling a reluctant
road, but still with a burthen in my heart which
will bring me to you again, and which even now
envelopes my pang of separat