But it is still more surprising to find, that among these clandestine visitors to this poor Fannio in his prison were the lady Lavinia della Rovere and her friend Olympia. Lavinia then dared to remain on terms of intimacy with the disgraced favourite, when all, as she complains deserted her. Lavinia ventured to seek her friend out in her humble home, and risk subjecting herself to the same suspicions which weighed so heavily on Olympia. But surely this dangerous expedition indicates a notable change of mind and feeling in both these young women, since but a year or so ago. It is but a very little time since those conversations, in which the difficulties of the doctrine of predestination prevented the young friends from accepting the religion of the reformers; and since Olympia's state of mind on religious matters was such as to lead her subsequently to think that "it would have been all over with her and her salvation," if she had remained longer at court. And now, after the lapse of a few months, we find the youthful pair sufficiently interested in the faith for which a martyr is about to suffer, to visit him in his dungeon, and "find consolation" from his exhortations! [Sidenote: MARTYRDOM.] Or should we rather suppose, that deeper thought, a more serious interest, and ultimate complete adoption of the persecuted faith on the part of Olympia and her friend, were the consequences, rather than the cause of their visit to Fannio in his dungeon; and that mere female compassion and sympathy with a fellow–unbeliever at least, if not as yet a fellow–believer, led them to the prison. It is probable enough, that the first heart–deep seeds of conviction fell into Olympia's mind during that solemn and affecting prison conference. It is a property of persecution to operate thus on generous and noble hearts. The desolate, disheartening, and precarious situation of Olympia's own fortunes, and the severe lesson she had so recently received on the vanity and instability of worldly prosperity, were well calculated to prepare her heart for the martyr's teaching, and open it to the emotional reception of a faith, which, according to the avowal of its adherents, cannot approve itself to the reasoning faculties.