“He gave it to me outside. You are to answer it, please, and give me the answer to take to him. You had better make haste, please, and write it and give it to me before we have to go down in the classrooms again. I am in the music-room, number seven.” “Thanks, my dear——” began Alberta; but the little girl did not wait to hear thanks. She was off like an arrow. Miss Goldsborough opened her letter and read: MY OWN AND ONLY LOVE:—I have but a few minutes to write to you in; if I would seize the earliest opportunity of getting this letter into your hands I must have it ready in a quarter of an hour. After long months of unremitting and unavailing search, I have but just learned the place of your incarceration. Oh, my beloved, my adored, my worshiped queen, you know that I would die to deliver you. Events are on the wing, sweet love, that may separate us—‘it may be for years, or it may be forever’—unless we meet and unite our destinies immediately. I have neither time nor opportunity to explain farther. Let it suffice for me to say that I will be on the watch outside the north front of the building every evening from six o’clock p. m. to six a. m. I will have a carriage and horses waiting near, but out of sight. Dear love! if you can effect your escape from the inside of those jealous walls I will secure your safety on the outside. Or if you will give me a hint as to how I can further aid your deliverance, I will risk my life—nay, more—my eternal salvation to serve you. And always, for time and for eternity, I devote myself body and soul to your service. VITTORIO. Alberta read this with flushed cheeks and beaming eyes. Before she had finished it her plan was formed. Ever since she had been in the convent all the senses and faculties of her mind and body had been on the alert to discover the best means of escape. And she knew them and she might have availed herself of them long before, but for this one consideration—she was ignorant of the whereabouts of her lover, and she was destitute of any other refuge. Out of the convent, where could she have found Vittorio, or where could she have gone for shelter? These unanswered questions held her captive as bolts and bars could never have done. But now, if she should make her escape, Vittorio would be outside waiting to receive her. And her resolution was taken immediately. She had no proper writing materials at hand. But she took an end of a pencil from her pocket and tore the blank page from Vittorio’s letter and wrote her answer. It was very pithy: Be at your post to-night and wait till you see me. She turned his envelope inside out and put her answer into it, and took it into the little music-room where the child, Julia McKnight, was practicing. “You will give this to the gentleman as you go home,” she said, handing the letter to the little girl.