This sudden chillness, sadd'ning round my heart,

In short, faint Autt'rings, never felt before?

Ah! fatal residence! From the first hour

These walls became my dwelling,

Each diff'rent moment brought some diff'rent pain.

ALZIRA.

Hah! what art thou?

Art thou substantial in thy form, or air?

Dost thou glitter to betray? Aye; I feel

Thy sharpen'd point, and press thee in my grasp.
The flitting shade is tangible as thou!

I will drag it forth, e'en from the centre,
And pursue it, tho' it lead to hell.

FOR several days the gloomy stillness of Montranzo was undisturbed; the hours of midnight

F 4

midnight rolled suddenly away, and no death-fraught sounds, no mysterious appearances, agitated the hearts of its inhabitants.

Di Rinaldini mechanically pursued the solitary monotony of his life, and wore out his hours in contemplation, in visiting the canon of St. Romuald, and in rambling among the Appennines.

Isidore, brooding over the quick succession of almost shapeless ideas which floated in his brain, mused over the past, and trembled at the future. A barren waste seemed to spread itself before him-a desolation so cheerless, that humanity, shuddering, recoiled from the view. 'Tis true, memory crouded not the past with broken vows, disappointed hopes, or mourning friends; but the present, alas! the present, was fraught with the acute sting of selfaccusation." Patience cannot assuage my anguish," he would exclaim, "fortitude

cannot

cannot surmount, flight cannot remove the hidden cause, Ah, no, no! In my heart's core it is buried; there, to the latest moments of existence, will it linger, and the last pang of memory will it corrode."

"Jesu Maria! what a cheerless prospect!", said Vannina, who had caught the last sentence as she stole softly to his side."Come, unburden your grief; let not smothered woe cramp the energy of life. Surely some secret sorrow, some direful tale, oppresses a heart worthy of the purest joy. Make me your confidante, Isidore: it is true I am young, but, if not an adviser, I may prove a consoler."

"A consoler!" repeated the youth, vainly struggling with his tears; "alas! 'tis an office which claims no influence in a case like mine."

'Tis an office whose extent you know not," eagerly rejoined Vannina-" Holy Virgin!" gazing on his face, and forgetting Benevento, and her promises, F5

Isidore,

I will

I will be faithful, I will be secret. Give me your griefs, give me the tale of your sorrows: I will pity, I will sympathize, I will comfort you."

"Kind, excellent, tender Vannina !" answered the youth; "trust me, my heart acknowledges your goodness."

"Your heart!" tremulously repeated the gratified girl.

"Yes, my heart, though goaded with the racking tortures of calamity, still has room for gratitude."

Vannina forced a smile.-"Why then," she resumed, restrain its impulse? When I am sorrowful, Isidore," taking his hand, and looking with bewitching softness in his face," the sympathy of a friend is a grateful relief to my feelings. There is no wound beyond the reach of alleviation. I have heard the Lady Abbess of Corpus Domini say, the disease and the cure come from the same hand."

She paused for an answer; but Isidore was silent he stood with his hands clasped, and his eyes fixed on Heaven.

"Do not sigh so heavily," pursued the loquacious comforter;" time will blunt the keenest edge of sorrow, and turn the sound of mourning into joy. Come, quit this window, its prospect is so melancholy and so desolate: I wish you would оссиру some other chamber. This turret is, as it were, shut out from the world; and the rock that faces it is so black and so gloomy. If I was the Signor, I would cut down yon grove of cypress; and as for the weeping birch and-"

"Cut it down, Vannina!-Oh no! that grove of cypress, that spot, seems formed for solitary delight: for whole hours do I gaze upon it, do I watch the tall heads of the pines and cedars that wave upon the mountain. It is a romantic idea; but as I view them bending to the breeze, methinks