Again in the silence I watched, and the moon had gone down; The shadows were hidden in darkness; the winds had passed by; The midnight sat throned, and the jewels were bright in her crown, For stars glimmered softly--oh softly!--from depths of the sky. And I sighed as I watched all alone, till again came a voice: "Ah! why dost thou watch? Joy is over, and sorrow is vain." And I said, "I am watching my grief. Let them sleep who rejoice, But the spirit that loves cannot part with one hour of its pain." Once more I sat watching, in darkness that fell like a death-- The deep solemn darkness that comes to make way for the dawn: I looked on the earth, and it slept without motion or breath, And blindly I looked on the sky, but the stars were withdrawn. And the voice spoke once more: "Cease thy watching, for what dost thou gain?" But I said, "I am watching my soul, to this darkness laid bare. Let them sleep to whom love giveth joy, to whom love giveth pain, But the soul left alone cannot part with one moment of prayer." MARION COUTHOUY. SISTER SILVIA. Monte Compatri is one of the eastern outlying peaks of the Alban Mountains, and, like so many Italian mountains, has its road climbing to and fro in long loops to a gray little city at the top. This city of Monte Compatri is a full and busy hive, with solid blocks of houses, and the narrowest of streets that break now and then into stairs. For those old builders respected the features of a landscape as though they had been the features of a face, and no more thought of levelling inequalities of land than of shaving down or raising up noses. When a man had a house-lot in a hollow, he built his house there, and made Steps to go down to it: his neighbor, who owned a rocky knoll, built his house at the top, and made stairs to go up to it. Moreover, if the land was a bit in the city, the house was made in the shape of it, and was as likely to have corners in obtuse or acute as in right angles. The inhabitants of Monte Compatri have two streets of which they are immensely proud--the Lungara, which wriggles through the middle of the town, and the Giro, which makes the entire circuit of the town, leaving outside only the rim of houses that rise from the edge of the mountain, some of them founded on the natural rock, others stretching roots of masonry far down into the earth. One of these houses on the Giro had for generations been in the possession of the Guai family. One after another had held it at an easy rent from Prince Borghese, the owner of the town. The vineyard and orchard below in the Campagna they owned, and from those their wealth was derived. For it was wealth for such people to have a house full of furniture, linen and porcelain--where, perhaps, a connoisseur might have found some rare bits of old china--besides having a thousand scudi in bank.