He lay motionless upon the white draped bed, a hero slain in the hour of his triumph, with broad chivalrous brows and tranquil lips, whence speech had fled for ever, grand and serene in the repose of a sleep that, like 'Lora's, had borne him away into peace. For him there was no longer storm, nor darkness, nor conflict. He beheld his God face to face in the light of the Perfect Day. Slowly at last, beyond the farthest bounds of the dull landscape, broke the white ghostly lines of dawn; and the shouting of the wind, and the rage of the chattering tempest fled down the watery sky with the flying scuds of cloud, away into the distant horizon of the west. But the belladonna-plant lay dead on the stones of the balcony, torn and beaten by the hail and the wind, its trailing stem and clinging tendrils seared with the lightning, its purple blooms scattered among the shards of the broken flowerpot and the burnt tinder on the floor of the desolate studio. High above the white front of the coming morning, the wind, returning into the bosom of God, bore upon its limitless wings a twofold burden, the spirit of a perished flower, the oblation of a Gentle Life. The grave, sonorous intonation sank and ended as it had begun, like the organ-roll of minor cadences; and the countenance of the phantom grew indistinct and fluctuating, till it seemed to blend with the sombre purple atmosphere that surrounded us. But as I perceived her bright eyes still fastened upon my face, I lifted my hands imploringly towards the floating presence, and would fain have caught her fading impalpable garments. "Spirit!" I cried, "one question more! The boy 'Tista surely came with the morning, and learned at last, even though too late, who had been his unknown friend?" "Daughter of mortality," returned the dying voice of the phantom, "I cannot tell. That night my mission upon earth was ended. But some of my sister-flowers, which bloom about the graves of the dead, have sent me messages from time to time by the breath of God's messenger, the errant breeze of heaven. And they tell me that a certain rich chemist of a large town in Piedmont, a handsome prosperous young man, named Battista Delcor, has caused a great white cross to be set above the resting-place of Herr Ritter. And upon the base of the cross these words are graven in letters of gold: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." And again, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." VIII. St. George the Chevalier* During the last few years a growing interest in the subject of religious metaphysic has shown itself in certain strata of our intellectual world. This interest has taken many forms, and attached itself to many developments, some of which have been chiefly distinguished for