Like one whose eye has caught a brilliant meteor flying through the heavens, and remains gazing on it until it has disappeared, Alvira could not remove her eyes from Francis. When she saw his saintly figure standing on the rude platform, holding in his outstretched hand the saving sign of redemption, she was seized with an unaccountable feeling of awe. Although every word of the sermon was heard and weighed, it seemed as if the pent-up memories of her soul took precedence of her thoughts, and rushed on her with overwhelming force, like the winds let loose by the storm-god of old. Everything strange or sad in her past career lent its quota of color to the dark picture remorse, with cruel and masterly hand, delineated before her troubled spirit. The struggle, the agony she had learned to brave in the Duomo at Milan and the fortress of Messina, rose again with hydra fangs from the tomb of oblivion in which recent excitements had buried it. None but her guardian angel knew her soul was once more the battle-field of contending feelings. At length a crimson blush passed over her marble features; a crystal tear-drop dimmed her eye; another sprang from the reservoirs of the heart and stole down the blushing cheek. Alvira wept. Tears have a language of their own deep and powerful; they tell of the weakness of the human heart, not its triumphs; for passion has a throne that tears may wash in vain. It is easier to drive the mighty river from its long-loved bed than the soul from the normal state of its gratified tendencies. "The heart," says St. Liguori, "where passion reigns, has become a crystal vase filled with earth no longer penetrated by the rays of the sun." The iron pedestal of passion's throne was not yet shivered in the heart of Alvira, nor were tears a sign that the sun of grace had pierced the crystal vase of the worldly heart. Great will be the grace that will draw Alvira from the zenith of a golden dream in which a triumphant ambition has placed her above her sex, and great amongst the heroes of the manly sex she feigned. Her conversion will be a miracle--a miracle of sweet violence, such as drew the Magdalens, the Augustines, and the Cortonas from the trammels of vice to the holy and happy path of repentance. The sermon is over. The crowd is still between Alvira and the Molo; she must wait. The people are gradually dispersing. Some go to the church to follow up the holy inspirations given, to throw themselves at the feet of a confessor, to break the chains of sin; others hasten to their homes or daily avocations, wondering, pleased, and sanctified in good desires and resolutions that came gushing from their hearts. Alvira is standing to one side alone and wrapt in thought. Suddenly she looks up. Something catches her eye. She starts; a tremble passes from head to foot. She looks again; her worst terrors are realized. It is--Father Francis is coming towards her!