tian love. She had one only brother, Stefano, two years her senior; and the brightest days in her convent life were those on which she was permitted to receive his visits. Gay, spirited, and handsome, she admired no less than she loved him; and he, on his part, looked with tender, protecting affection on the young girl whose fair face would, he thought, have brightened their desolate palazzo, and cheered his widowed father's loneliness.

Yet Teresa was often grieved at the light, jesting tone with which he spoke of the life to which she was destined, and smiled at the idea of her finding happiness in the strict performance of her religious duties.

When about sixteen, Teresa commenced her Noviciate; and it was intended that, in the course of another year, she should assume the black veil, and speak those irrevocable vows which would shut her out for ever from a world which, as yet, she neither knew nor regretted. The only pang she felt-and it was severe-arose from the anticipated separation from her brother: for she well knew that when once she had professed herself a nun, they should rarely, if ever, meet again.

The father, however, died suddenly, before the year of her Noviciate had expired; and Stefano, who thus became her sole guardian, determined not to suffer her, at so early an age, to bind herself by vows which she might hereafter, as he thought, have reason to regret.

Besides, he said, he wanted her to live with him, and share the wealth he had now inherited; and Teresa, who so tenderly loved her brother, could not look forward without pleasure to the idea of dwelling always with him, although she still clung timidly to that convent home, in which were centred all the sweet associations of childhood and youth: but Stefano Ghiberti was not one to be easily turned aside from any plan of his own forming; and Teresa was therefore soon installed as mistress of her brother's house. Not, however, of the proud palazzo, which she remembered in her childish days, but of a charming country villa, surrounded by gardens, and at some distance from the city.

To Teresa, with her simple convent tastes and habits, this villa was far more delightful than any palace could

have been. She wondered, indeed, sometimes, at the men who were her brother's chief associates in this retirement, and whose fierce looks and fiery words were little in harmony with her gentle spirit: but she believed her brother, when he said that her ignorance of the world made her difficult to please, and assured her that many of the haughtiest Italian nobles were proud to number such men amongst their friends.

There was one thing, however, to which Teresa could not be blind, deeply as it grieved her. She saw clearly that her brother, in spite of all his affectionate kindness to her, was far from sharing her feelings, in matters of religion; and his friends, many of whom were Englishmen, often terrified her by their scornful allusions to things which she held dearer than life itself. Stefano, indeed, checked hastily any expression that sent a flush across her brow, or called up an expression of pain in her countenance; yet she knew he heeded such observations little on his own account: and from this, and many other causes, her life, within a short time after her first quitting the convent, became one of doubt, anxiety, and fear.

It was not long before she learned the meaning of all that had appeared to her so strange. Her brother, misled by some of the daring spirits of his time, and impatient of longer submission to the yoke imposed by strangers on his beautiful Italy, had engaged in the wildest schemes for obtaining his country's freedom: and he, with his friends and associates, were in truth Carbonari: most of them being as little disposed to submit to the rule of the Church, as to the laws of their civil Sovereigns. This feeling had been encouraged by several English and foreign Protestants, friends of Freedom—so called—who had joined the Carbonari; and Stefano himself listened sometimes with indignation to their invectives against the faith which his ancestors had revered. Still, when the errors and defects in that system were brought so prominently before his eyes that they could neither be denied nor defended, the ties of faith and obedience that had bound him to his Church were shaken and almost severed; though without substituting any purer faith,—

leaving him, instead, to wander without guide or clue in the wide wastes of infidelity and irreligion. He would not listen to the pleadings of his gentle sister; regarding her as merely the slave of her confessor; and still less could he be prevailed on to embrace the faith of those whose violence and want of charity seemed to him incompatible with the zeal for religion which they professed.

Teresa paused for a moment, wearied with her sad recital; and I could not but sigh to think how the prejudice and rash judgment of undisciplined minds, often tends to aggravate the evil they desire to remedy. Anxiously I inquired whether her brother had taken any active part in the insurrections which I knew had been so severely punished by the Government: and in the tears which alone replied to my question, I read a confirmation of my worst fears. He had been suspected and proscribed; and they were only enabled to escape through the fidelity of an old servant, who accompanied them to England, and under whose protection Teresa had been left by her brother, when he returned to Italy, there to prosecute his plans with greater energy and secresy. The old servant died, in the first winter they spent in England, and Teresa had since that time been quite alone, except during the few hurried visits paid her by her brother at distant intervals. At his last visit, he told her that they were on the eve of embarking their whole strength in one grand effort; and if this failed, he had resolved to abandon Italy for a time, until their strength should be more consolidated, and the general aspect of affairs more favourable. To this event Teresa had long been looking forward, full of fears for her brother's safety as she knew his reckless courage would not suffer him to relinquish his plans, or make any attempt to save himself while there was yet the faintest prospect of success. And her fears were now realized: a letter had reached her that very morning, conveying the sad, yet expected intelligence, that the effort had been made,the blow once more attempted to be struck,—in vain. Stefano Ghiberti, sanguine to the last, had been severely wounded, and in that condition removed by some of his friends to a place of temporary concealment. He hoped

to effect his escape to England, but feared lest his friends might be obliged to set sail before he was sufficiently recovered to accompany them; and he begged Teresa to hold herself in readiness to join him immediately on his landing; "for," said he, "a hasty voyage may act unfavourably on my wound: and I would fain not be absent in death from her to whom, alas! I have but ill proved my affection during life.”

And now came the difficulty, to meet which poor Teresa had sent for me. Her slender resources, carefully as they had been husbanded, were quite unequal to meeting the expenses of the journey. She had jewels that had been her mother's, and which she had reserved for such an emergency as the present; but she knew not how to dispose of them, and had, besides, like many women, a timid horror of money transactions with strangers. She was almost distracted, too, with fears for her brother, fancying every post might bring news of his arrival at some distant port; and she bitterly reproached herself for having consented to be fixed in this secluded spot, cut off from all the holy offices of her religion, and obliged for so many months (in compliance with her brother's wishes, who feared lest by any unguarded expression she might awaken suspicion of his plans,) to neglect Confession, so that she found herself without one friend or counsellor in the hour of her deepest need.

"Oh Teresa,” I exclaimed, “if you would only suffer me to bring my brother to you! He will arrange about your journey better than I could possibly do: and nowhere can you meet with a more gentle, sympathizing adviser, a more faithful spiritual friend."

"He looks all you say," she replied; "but another Clergyman than my own! oh no.”

“Is not this an unkind prejudice ?" I asked; “a little -forgive me if I say so—a little want of charity towards those who, though of another Communion, are no less, believe me, members of CHRIST's true mystical Body ?"

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Nay," she answered, "it is not to us that that reproach should be made; I knew nothing of Protestantism until I was persuaded by one of my brother's friends to go with him to a Protestant chapel in Italy. There was more preach

ing than praying, I thought; and the discourse I there heard delivered was little more than a string of invectives against our faith: many of them so ingeniously uncharitable, and involving such utter disregard of what we hold to be Sacramental truth, that I resolved never again to expose myself to the teaching of any such minister."

"Oh do not think this chance preacher a type of all Priests of the Church of England. Believe me, there are many, many amongst us-and my brother is one who, while they refuse to admit the authority of Rome, sincerely deplore the errors which have compelled us to separate from her Communion, and look forward in hope and prayer to the time when, as they trust, she may herself return to the purer doctrine and practice of the primitive Church. Look here," I continued, taking from my pocket one of my inseparable companions, the "Christian Year," and reading the exquisite concluding verses in the lines on the 5th of November

"Could any feel wounded or offended at being the object of feelings such as these, or blame us for thus giving expression to them ?" "Yes, they are beautiful,' she answered, "but is not the very occasion on which they are written a sufficient proof that my reproach is not made without reason ?" "It does seem so, indeed," I said, "but were you to study the history of our country, you would find that the Church had no hand in ordering the Service, which you justly deem uncharitable. It was perpetuated by a servile Parliament, to please a king who was scarcely less an enemy to the Roman than the Anglican Church. But this is no time to pursue such a discussion; let me only bring my brother to you. As an English gentleman, he will at least be able to help you, even though you refuse to acknowledge his spiritual authority." "Thanks, a thousand thanks," she exclaimed, warmly grasping my hand; "and do not think me un