It would have needed a clearer brain and a cooler judgment than I possessed to have conjectured where I was, and what had occurred to me, when next I recovered my senses. Weak, fevered, and with a burning thirst, I lay, unable to move, and could merely perceive the objects which lay within the immediate reach of my vision. The place was cold, calm, and still as the grave. A lamp, which hung high above my head, threw a faint light around, and showed me, within a niche of the opposite wall, the figure of a gorgeously dressed female; she appeared to be standing motionless, but as the pale light flickered upon her features, I thought I could detect the semblance of a smile. The splendor of her costume and the glittering gems which shone upon her spotless robe gleamed through the darkness with an almost supernatural brilliancy, and so beautiful did she look, so calm her pale features, that as I opened and shut my eyes and rubbed my lids, I scarcely dared to trust to my erring senses, and believe it could be real. What could it mean? Whence this silence; this cold sense of awe and reverence? Was it a dream; was it the fitful vision of a disordered intellect? Could it be death? My eyes were riveted upon that beautiful figure. I essayed to speak, but could not; I would have beckoned her towards me, but my hands refused their office. I felt I know not what charm she possessed to calm my throbbing brain and burning heart; but as I turned from the gloom and darkness around to gaze upon her fair brow and unmoved features, I felt like the prisoner who turns from the cheerless desolation of his cell, and looks upon the fair world and the smiling valleys lying sunlit and shadowed before him. Sleep at length came over me; and when I awoke, the day seemed breaking, for a faint gray tint stole through a stained-glass window, and fell in many colored patches upon the pavement. A low muttering sound attracted me; I listened, it was Mike’s voice. With difficulty raising myself upon one arm, I endeavored to see more around me. Scarcely had I assumed this position, when my eyes once more fell upon the white-clad figure of the preceding night. At her feet knelt Mike, his hands clasped, and his head bowed upon his bosom. Shall I confess my surprise, my disappointment! It was no other than an image of the blessed Virgin, decked out in all the gorgeous splendor which Catholic piety bestows upon her saints. The features, which the imperfect light and my more imperfect faculties had endowed with an expression of calm, angelic beauty, were, to my waking senses, but the cold and barren mockery of loveliness; the eyes, which my excited brain gifted with looks of tenderness and pity, stared with no speculation in them; yet contrasting my feelings of the night before, full as they were of, their deceptions, with my now waking thoughts, I longed once more for that delusion which threw a dreamy pleasure over me, and subdued the stormy passions of my soul into rest and repose.