Alvira: The Heroine of Vesuvius

in the M

you

ortal thoughts

om the crown t

elty! Make th

cess and passa

nctious visit

urpose, nor kee

it. Come to my

for gall, you mur

your sightle

re's mischief! C

in the dunnest

ife see not the

through the blan

"Hold!

cbe

her couch. The agonies of anticipated remorse had cast a withering shadow on her thoughts. She

he gaze of my mother looking down from heaven on my awful impiety, and would hear from her tomb her scream of terror, her curse of vengeance on my parricidal guilt-could

crumble before their powerful machinations. In moments of sober reflection our resolutions are like prisms of basalt, that will not be riven by the lightning, but which in the hour of real trial prove to be ice-crystals that a sunbeam

ncies of their impious father. His language, less guarded, seemed to teem with new insults against religion and God, and contributed to confirm the chill of horror with which he was met b

mitted to enter the sanctuary of the heart, assumes at once a tyrannical sway, whose wicked demands of gratification become more and more imperious and exacting day by day, and

ds of the garden to taint in their decay the breezes they would sweeten if left on their stem. They longed for the pleasures that pleased in the day of prosperity; the dance, the banquet, and those visits that won the momentary

nce of their astute father has placed them again in the cale

mbellished rumor. Cassier-the hero of the tale, the unsuspected guilty one-went around and told the news with all the sanctimonious whining and eye-uplifting of a ranting preacher. In the mea

storm in the cloister of Martigny. This is a venerable Benedictine monastery, erected in the eleventh century by a Catholic

harming village of Martigny, over which the monastery presided like the fortress of a mediaeval castle protecting the feudal territory of the petty ruler. Wearied, but pleased at the novel situation into which chance had cast them, Charles and Henry approached the venerable pile with feelings of reverence they had never felt. The silence of the tomb reigned around, and the old gate was closed. Whilst wondering how men could come voluntarily to live in such a solitude, and how they got the necessaries of life, a bell tolled solemnly from one of the towers; its

pression on the tender hearts of the young visitors, who felt the delicacy of their position in enjoying a forbidden hospitality. The example of the evangelical perfection practised by these holy servants of God insensibly drew Charles and Henry to love the sublime virtues they practise

es from which he drew the most instructive morals. One cheerful afternoon, when seated on the rocks viewing a magnificent sunset, the aged monk told them his own history. He had been a soldier of fortune. In you

the commencement of the battle. The aged warrior, forgetting the gravity of his years

farewell words of a celebrated courtier who left the French court to don the habit: "Some time of preparation should pass between the life of a solider and his grave." He heard the great S

oor Aloysia was attracted to the higher and more real glories of the virtuous lives of these holy men. She felt she could stay with them for ever; and there, in the secrecy of her own heart, and before the alte

ation hanging in all its gloomy anticipations over the community isolated by the snow-storm from the civilized world around? Or will it be the just indignation of the holy monks in finding the true character of the refugees whom they have

nticipated will fling a sad memory aro

tion is carried on by the garrulous and interested youths and the happy, virtuous old monk. A forced sobriety, or the atmosphere of virtue which he dreads, has cast a gloom over him. His thought

tenance and agitated manner were at times indexes of passion, revenge, and self-love; for a moment the feeli

e, strays from her father and Charles to gather ferns and wild flowers creeping from the crevices of the rocks, or rising with exquisite beauty from a layer of snow. They are emblems of her own innocence and fragrant as her virtue, growing in the wilderness and

the ascent was easy, but the other overhung a frightful precipice. They had entered into an animated conversation; Aloysia, down

her father was no longer on the ledge of rock, and Charles flung her