boy, but I feel I am disposed to consider you as a man. You have the intelligence, the penetration, the decision of a man. Have you the feelings of one?” “Try me, my father.” I did not perceive that his irony, his _secret_, and his parade of feeling, were all alike theatrical, and substitutionary for real interest and sincerity. “If I should be inclined to trust you, my dear child,”--“I shall be grateful.” “And secret.” “And secret, my father.” “Then imagine yourself”--“Oh! my father, let me not have to _imagine_ any thing--tell me the truth.” “Foolish boy,--am I then so bad a painter, that I must write the name under the figure.” “I understand you, my father, and shall not interrupt you again.” “Then imagine to yourself the honour of one of the first houses in Spain; the peace of a whole family,--the feelings of a father,--the honour of a mother,--the interests of religion,--the eternal salvation of an individual, all suspended in one scale. What do you think could outweigh them?” “Nothing,” I replied ardently. “Yet, in the opposite scale you throw _nothing_,--the caprice of a boy not thirteen years old;--this is all you have to oppose to the claims of nature, of society, and of God.” “My father, I am penetrated with horror at what you have said,--does all this depend on me?” “It does,--it does all depend on you.” “But how, then,--I am bewildered,--I am willing to make a sacrifice,--tell me what I am to do.” “Embrace, my dear child, the monastic life; this will accomplish the views of all who love you, ensure your own salvation, and fulfil the will of God, who is calling you at this moment by the voices of your affectionate parents, and the supplications of the minister of heaven, who is now kneeling before you.” And he sunk on his knees before me.