The vesper and the matin hours became at once the epochs of his day. He was ever thinking of them, and soon was thinking of the feelings which their beautiful services celebrate and express. His mind seemed no longer altogether a blank, and the religious sentiment was the first that returned to his exhausted heart. “There will be a requiem to-day,” whispered one of his veiled attendants. A requiem! a service for the dead; a prayer for their peace and rest! And who was dead? The bright, the matchless one, the spell and fascination of his life! Was it possible? Could she be dead, who seemed vitality in its consummate form? Was there ever such a being as Theodora? And if there were no Theodora on earth, why should one think of any thing but heaven? The sounds came floating down the chamber till they seemed to cluster round his brain; sometimes solemn, sometimes thrilling, sometimes the divine pathos melting the human heart with celestial sympathy and heavenly solace. The tears fell fast from his agitated vision, and he sank back exhausted, almost insensible, on his pillow. “The Church has a heart for all our joys and all our sorrows, and for all our hopes, and all our fears,” whispered a veiled attendant, as she bathed his temples with fragrant waters. Though the condition of Lothair had at first seemed desperate, his youthful and vigorous frame had enabled him to rally, and, with time and the infinite solicitude which he received, his case was not without hope. But, though his physical cure was somewhat advanced, the prostration of his mind seemed susceptible of no relief. The services of the Church accorded with his depressed condition; they were the only events of his life, and he cherished them. His attendants now permitted and even encouraged him to speak; but he seemed entirely incurious and indifferent. Sometimes they read to him, and he listened, but he never made remarks. The works which they selected had a religious or ecclesiastical bias, even while they were imaginative; and it seemed difficult not to be interested by the ingenious fancy by which it was worked out, that every thing that was true and sacred in heaven had its symbol and significance in the qualities and accidents of earth. After a month passed in this manner, the surgeons having announced that Lothair might now prepare to rise from his bed, a veiled attendant said to him one day, “There is a gentleman here who is a friend of yours, and who would like to see you. And perhaps you would like to see him also for other reasons, for you must have much to say to God after all that you have suffered. And he is a most holy man.” “I have no wish to see any one. Are you sure he is not a stranger?” asked Lothair. “He is in the next room,” said the attendant. “He has been here throughout your illness, conducting our services; often by your bedside when you were asleep, and always praying for you.”