sordid motive, had compelled this sacrifice. Amid the
crowd was a dark, handsome youth, in Andalusian garb, who seemed to
fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless the secret lover from
whom she was forever to be separated. My indignation rose as I
noted the malignant expression painted on the countenances of the
attendant monks and friars. The procession arrived at the chapel of
the convent; the sun gleamed for the last time upon the chaplet of
the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal threshold and disappeared
within the building. The throng poured in with cowl, and cross, and
minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment at the door. I could
divine the tumult of his feelings; but he mastered them, and
entered. There was a long interval. I pictured to myself the scene
passing within: the poor novice despoiled of her transient finery,
and clothed in the conventual garb; the bridal chaplet taken from
her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of its long silken tresses.
I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a
bier; the death-pall spread over her; the funeral service performed
that proclaimed her dead to the world; her sighs were drowned in the
deep tones of the organ, and the plaintive requiem of the nuns; the
father looked on, unmoved, without a tear; the lover--no my
imagination refused to portray the anguish of the lover--there the
picture remained a blank.

"After a time the throng again poured forth and dispersed various
ways, to enjoy the light of the sun and mingle with the stirring
scenes of life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was no
longer there. The door of the convent closed that severed her from
the world forever. I saw the father and the lover issue forth; they
were in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement in his
gesticulations; I expected some violent termination to my drama; but
an angle of a building interfered and closed the scene. My eye
afterwards was frequently turned to that convent with painful
interest. I remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from
a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, the unhappy
nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces the
street below in unavailing anguish.' . . .

"The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and dest