“Can such a mind find delight in vice?” said the abbess, mildly gazing upon the kneeling girl. “Why do you turn your eyes to Heaven, admiring its greatness, and trembling at its power, if you yet suffer your heart to yield to the delusions of wickedness?” “Will such a venial fault as love be accounted infamous in Heaven?” “Guilty love is the parent of every vice. Oh, what could mislead a mind like yours, my child?” “Madam, there are some born with a perversion of intellect, a depravity of feeling, nothing can cure. Can we straighten deformity, or change the rough features of ugliness into beauty?” “We may do much.” “Nothing, good lady, nothing; though man would boast that it is possible. Let the ignorant teach the wise; let the sinner venture to instruct the saint; we cannot alter nature. We may learn to dissemble; but the stamp is imprest with life, and with life alone it is erased.” “God bless, forgive, and amend thee!” said the abbess. “The sun is set, the hour is late: thy words have moved, but do not convince me.” “Rise, daughter, kneel not to me: there is one above, to whom alone that posture is due.” As St. Clare rode from the convent, she placed a mark upon the wicket of the little garden, and raising her voice, “Let him be accursed,” she cried, “who takes from hence this badge of thy security: though rivers of blood shall gush around, not a hair of these holy and just saints shall be touched.” CHAPTER XCV. The preparations made this year by France, in conjunction with her allies, and the great events which took place in consequence of her enterprizes, belong solely to the province of the historian. It is sufficient to state, that the armament which had been fitted out on the part of the Batavian Republic, sailed at a later period of the same year, under the command of Admiral de Winter, with the intention of joining the French fleet at Brest, and proceeded from thence to Ireland, where the discontents and disaffection were daily increasing, and all seemed ripe for immediate insurrection. Lord Glenarvon was at St. Alvin Priory, when he was summoned to take the command of his frigate, and join Sir George Buchanan and Admiral Duncan at the Texel. Not a moment’s time was to be lost: he had already exceeded the leave of absence he had obtained. The charms of a new mistress, the death of Calantha, the uncertain state of his affairs, and the jealous eye with which he regarded the measures taken by his uncle and cousin de Ruthven, had detained him till the last possible moment; but the command from Sir George was peremptory, and he was never tardy in obeying orders which led him from apathy and idleness to a life of glory.