ad been settled between my
father and Don Antonio, without consulting my inclination. Alas! the
first intelligence I received, was to bid me prepare for the ceremony,
which is to take place immediately.--My dearest Lope," she added with
tenderness; "Oh! never again harrow up my feelings, with doubts unworthy
of our mutual passion."

She clung to Don Lope's neck, and pressing him with the earnestness of
unbounded confidence and love--"Never," she continued, "had Theodora a
single thought concealed from you; you, the absolute master of my heart,
and the most secret wishes of my soul."

Then in a more composed manner, she proceeded; "It was but this morning
that Don Antonio arrived, when my father immediately proceeded to
announce the purport of his visit. My amazement at first knew no bounds;
I remonstrated on the abruptness of the proposal, and endeavoured, by
gentle expostulation, to ward off the threatening blow. But my
entreaties, and my tears were in vain. My father, strenuously bent on
the accomplishment of his wishes, left me the only option of yielding
implicit obedience to his mandates, or passing the rest of my existence
in the solitary gloom of a convent. My choice is made; I lose you,
Lope;"--and here her anguish almost overpowered her utterance; "I lose
you for ever, but your dear image shall be constantly before me in those
dark abodes of penitence and woe. Thither must I go, and leave all these
dear scenes, and the dearer sight of you, consigned to unrelenting
misery. Not humbly, alas! to pray; not to abjure the world; for ah! I
cannot abjure that world which contains the fondest object that links me
to life. I go not in the humble mood of a repentant sinner, to weep over
a guilty life, but in the desponding resolution of a fond woman, eager
to keep her faith unbroken to him of her heart's first and only
attachment. For you, oh Lope, my tears will flow; you alone will be the
theme of my constant meditations--my fervent prayers. In my hopeless
solitude, I may perhaps feel one glimpse of consolation;--the idea that
you may be happy, and that even in the glittering scenes of ambition,
you will sometimes revert to the cheerless abode of Theodora. This will
afford me some solace in my affliction. And when the hand of death
releases me from my odious chains, your tears will tenderly fall on the
grave of her, whose greatest crime was that of loving you too well."

"Theodora!" exclaimed Gomez Arias, moved by the