themselves under the dark vaulted roof of the cloister church. At one of the altars, decked with tapers in high candlesticks, knelt a priest in the attitude of prayer; on either side of him, also kneeling, were two young choristers, clad in violet mantles, with white lace capes, holding censers in their hands. The priest was imploring a miracle from Heaven: he prayed that God would preserve the city, strengthen the failing courage, send down patience and resignation to the hearts of the timid and pusillanimous, to support them under the misery He had sent. Some women, like so many phantoms, were on their knees, reclining and even drooping their heads on the backs of the stools and of the dark wooden benches before them. Some men, leaning against the columns which sustained the side arches, mournfully knelt also. A window with coloured glass, which was over the altar, was now lighted by the pink hue of morning, and from it fell, down upon the floor, blue, yellow, and variegated circles of light, which suddenly brightened the darkness of the church. The whole of the altar in its distant niche, seem drowned in light; the smoke of the incense hung in the air like a cloud beaming with all the hues of the rainbow. Andrew was fain to look from the dark corner where he was standing, on this remarkable phenomenon produced by light. At this moment the sublime pealing of the organ suddenly filled the whole of the church; it grew deeper and deeper, increased by degrees into the heavy rollings of thunder, and then, all at once, turning into a heavenly melody, sent up, higher and higher beneath the vaulted roof, its warbling notes, which recalled the delicate voices of maidens; then once more it changed into the deep bellow of thunder, and then it was silent; but the rollings of the thunder long after tremulously vibrated along the aisles, and Andrew with open mouth stood marvelling at the sublime music.