essence might have caught the shadowy outline and heard the unfelt motion of an angelmessenger bending at that moment over the earnest pleader. She knew not why the idea of her lost mother should come to her with the feeling of a presence, as she rose from her kneeling posture, calmed and far less lonely; she knew not that she had experienced the mystic intercourse of spirit with spirit, and that there had been sent to her a sustaining strength that should pass no more away; she knew not that the echo of that mother's prayer, which had never died away in the chambers of her heart> had found an answering tone, and that their blended harmonies would henceforth gather power and sweetness, until the marred harp of earth should exchange its imperfect music for the golden lyre of heaven!

"Once, my dear Una," plead a new-found friend, “only go with me this once. I would have you judge for yourself whether our religion is a barren and lifeless one; whether the approach into the presence of our Maker without any adventitious aids or mediation, seems as presumptuous as you suppose. I have gone with you, and witnessed the ceremonials of a religion which addresses itself to the outward sense; now come with me, and listen to the simple forms of one, which, with the stern majesty of truth, seeks to speak only to the understanding and the heart."

How often had Una striven to shut her mind against the disturbing influence of this very captivation of the senses of which her friend spake ! "But it would be no venial sin for me to comply with your request. A true daughter of the Church," added Una, with a sad smile, "must not do so forbidden a thing as join her prayers with those of heretics."

"Ah, Una! you have been reared in the cage, and I must not wonder that you know nothing of the world of free religious thought that lies without your Church's pale. But truth dreads no comparisons and shrinks fromno investigation. Come, listen just once to our preaching and our prayers, before you decide that we are on the highway of delusion."

Una went, and sat as a hearer among the Protestant worshippers. At first there did appear to her something bold in the approach of the officiating minister so near to the "holy of holies," without even the form of a prepared prayer. There were no rich vestments, no swinging censers, no bending of the knee, no elevated cup, no cross. Shorn of all outward assistances, the accused spirit was confronted with its offended Judge. Compelled by conscience to stand there

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a trembling culprit, naked of all things but its own sinful nature, it could make no denial, could offer no plea.. No saintly intercession could bribe the indulgence of justice; no amount of human suffering restore its lost purity or work out an absolution. And when, with an earnestness that stirred the innermost depths of the listener's soul, the preacher led the self-condemned spirit to the feet of the one Mediator, and left it there, beneath the full gaze of his compassionate eye, overburdened with shame, and bereft of all reliance on any other in earth or heaven-Una bowed her face upon her hands, and breathed to herself with a consciousness of inward joy such as the ancient philosopher never knew—“I have found it !—I have found it !" At that moment a watching angel burst away with the glad tidings to the courts above, that another of the children of earth had become an heir of eternal glory.

Again she was alone in the little moonlit chapel; again her fingers pressed the keys of the organ, but they did not, as before, give out beneath her touch tones of mournfulness. Light was in her lifted eye, and a seraph's gladness on her lips, as she poured forth in unpremeditated music the fullness of her soul.

"When my heart and strength were failing, Overshadowed by despair,

Thou hadst pity on my sorrow-
Thou didst hear my prayer!

Brightness breaks upon my vision→→→
All delusion melts away;
And my spirit freed from fetters,
Walks amid the day.

Not by human expiation,

Not by deeds of merit done, Was my obligation cancelled, Was my freedom won.

Thou hast paid the mighty forfeit,
On thy head the stroke did fall;
Thine the work, my suffering Saviour,
Thou hast wrought it all!

I, who through earth's tangled pathway,
Blindly strayed without a guide,
Now behold the Son of Mary,
Walking at my side.

Whilst that hand for me once streaming,
With the sacrificial gore,
Holds my own, I shall be lonely
Or dismayed no more.

Speak, my heart, thine adoration !
Soul, thy strains of triumph raise!
Be my very sense of being
Borne away in praise!"

The change in the views of the orphan was soon apparent to the vigilant eyes about her,

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and she was at once subjected to an espionage that was tormenting. She was permitted no more to cross the threshold of a Protestant sanctuary; the Bible she had obtained was withdrawn, and intercourse with her young Protestant friend forbidden. There was no harshness, no menace, used at first to frighten back the wanderer. The politic priest understood the delicate mechanism of her nature too well to permit that, until all milder means should prove unavailing. He knew that

"Her sweet emotions could be ever swayed

By gentle words, as reeds by summer wind ;"

but he had not yet learned that when what she deemed truth and principle to be at stake, she could be as firm "as beetling rocks upon the ocean's shore." The most winning persuasion and specious argument were therefore in vain. She who had been so directly taught of God himself, could not come back and sit meekly as once, at the feet of a human teacher. Coldness took the place of kindness towards her. Her scrupulous and rigid relatives sighed over her strange obstinacy, and marvelled at the tenacity with which the taint of Protestantism clings, as they remembered her childish account of her dying mother's injunctions and prayer. Compulsatory mortifications and vigils and fasts, while they served to make the lovely face paler, and the fragile figure still slighter, left the spirit calm and unshaken. She could not renounce the only anchor of hope she had ever found to cling to, to be tossed again upon a sea of doubts. It was thought necessary to remove her to some place better fitted for carrying on the important work proposed, and far away from the troublesome inspection and too curious inquiries of interested friends. A journey must be taken for the benefit of her health, she was told; and the unresisting girl allowed herself to be borne away to the convent at E-, where the pure air and the Sabbath quiet of the spot would, they assured her, restore her physical nature to its proper tone, and the heavenly communings, and spotless examples of the holy sisters, aid in bringing her back from her path of error. A series of systematic efforts was commenced immediately upon her arrival; beginning with a tenderness and sympathy that moved the unsuspecting and unfriended orphan to tears, and continuing through all gradations up to the refined mental torture which only Jesuit cunning knows how to inflict upon a victim wholly within its hand. clearer and steadier grew the light within; more resolute became the heart that was being made

But

"perfect through suffering." And though there were times when the dismayed spirit trembled and faltered in its path of loneliness, the feeling was a momentary one. She did not shrink or compromise her faith, and had the eyes of those who were striving to shake her constancy had a spiritualized vision, they might have seen that ever in her extremity there appeared "an angel strengthening" her.

The drama was well nigh ended; its last scene drew to a close. While the strong heart grew stronger, its delicate outward environments began to give way.

"The weary weight Of all this unintelligible world,"

was soon to be lifted off, and the tumult that had often vexed the enduring soul, to be lost forever in that "appropriate calm" which should know no breaking.

In a small chamber, empty and plain even to homeliness, lay the meek sufferer, with her eyes fixed upon the westering sun, whose latest rays rested like a crown of gold on the top of a distant mountain.

The

"Near home!" she murmured faintly to herself again and again-"near home!" She lingered upon the last word as if it conveyed to her mind an idea of inexpressible sweetness. golden gleam faded from the room and the dim twilight crept on, making what was lonely before, seem still lonelier. Long after the darkness of night had reigned through the apartment, the low, weak voice might have been heard trying to keep the solitary heart company.

"It will be sorrowful," she sighed, "sorrowful to die alone! Ah! their religion is not like that of Jesus; he is so compassionate! He has not left me; no, I am not alone!"

A stealthy step gliding over the floor interrupted the soliloquy, and one of the youngest of the nuns sat down upon the bed and laid her hand on Una's damp brow.

"Oh! you shall not be alone, sister!" said she; I will watch with you; only believe, only trust in the faith of our holy church. I am in an agony for you; I cannot see you die under an anathema;" and she knelt at the bedside and besought with tears for a renunciation.

Such a manifestation of interest and kindness touched Una deeply; but she did not weep; she was too near heaven for tears. Calmly and connectedly as her failing strength would permit, she reiterated the sources of her trust, and prayed the sympathizing sister to make them her own.

The entrance of a second person terminated the conversation. She bore a taper in her hand, and the deference with which the nun received her, marked her as the superior. She advanced to the bed, and bending over, asked in no very gentle tone, if her determination was unchanged.

"My hope is in my Saviour's sacrifice,” was the faint reply. She placed her fingers upon Una's wrist for a moment, then turning, said to the nun in a tone in no degree lowered

"Sister Agnes, you are more experienced in sickness than I am; feel her pulse and tell me if you think she will last till morning !"

The sister cast an appealing glance toward Una; but the question had caused no visible agitation. She took her hand as directed, but it was only to carry it to her lips and bathe it with

her tears.

"Ye shall save them pulling them out of the fire,' is the direction of the holy apostle," said the superior. "The father is waiting below to administer the last rites; for unworthy as she has shown herself to be by her obstinacy, yet for the sake of her friends, who are true children of the church, and who would be shocked to think she had died without them, we will not withhold them. Tell him I am ready, sister Agnes; you need not return.

Heedless, for a moment, of the superior's presence, the nun folded her arms around Una with a convulsive clasp, and then hurried from the room. In a few moments the priest appeared, bearing in his hands the golden vessel containing the holy chrism. One effort more was

made to shake the purpose of the dying girl, but the same answer was returned as before. With something like an imprecation, the priest proceeded in a careless manner to apply the extreme unction. Una's lips moved the while in silent prayer, and when, the ceremony being finished, they left her in darkness and alone, her already glorified spirit was only conscious of the presence of hovering angels waiting to convoy her through the "blue realms of ether," to the bosom of her God. When the early bell rung for matins, its sound did not disturb the sleeper; she had wakened in heaven! The mother's prayer was answered, as she knelt before the throne with one child, long a dweller in heaven, and the other a new and wondering angel, and said, "Here am I, with the children whom Thou hast given me !"

Blessed Una! thou wert not the only martyr of whose existence the world has no record; but the repose of heaven was far sweeter to thee after the struggles of thy young heart here, than if thou hadst passed from a bed of roses to the 'green pastures" and "still waters" above!

Una's aunt and cousin grieved sincerely for her; but the assurance contained in the letter of the superior, that she had received the last rites, was all the comfort they asked. They caused to be erected over her grave, in the little cemetery at E, a monument bearing only this simple inscription:

UNA G, aged seventeen, Implora pace.

To gambol in the summer sun,

Wondering at all I see;

Or at my father's side to run;

Sit on my mother's knee;

Or with my brother, or a friend,
Fearless, reckless, wild,

Once more to chase the butterfly-
I wish I were a child.

Through all the world, 'mong rich or poor,
Wherever we may turn;

Full well we see, 'tis but too true,
That "man was made to mourn."
But when those little ones I see,

Gentle, peaceful, mild,
In sweet simplicity of thought,
I wish I were a child.

"Except you turn like one of these,"

Said He who reigns above, "You cannot to my kingdom come,

Where all is peace and love."

And this I know, although in heaven,
By angels pure and mild,
Eternal praise to him is given,
He loves a little child.

Oh, life, it is a thorny path; This world, a world of care; How vain, indeed, is all the joy, That we on earth can share ! Man's life, a life is full of woes; This, gentle, peaceful, mild;

In truth, in hope, in joy, and love, I wish I were a child.