“We parted, and I retired to my cell. I know not how he and the others were employed, but, before matins, there was such a tumult in the convent, that one would have thought Madrid was on fire. Boarders, novices, and monks, ran about from cell to cell, up and down the stair-case, through all the corridors, unrestrained and unquestioned,--all order was at an end. No bell was rung, no commands for restoring tranquillity issued; the voice of authority seemed to have made peace for ever with the shouts of uproar. From my window I saw them running through the garden in every direction, embracing each other, ejaculating, praying, and counting their beads with hands tremulous, and eyes uplifted in extacy. The hilarity of a convent has something in it uncouth, unnatural, and even alarming. I suspected some mischief immediately, but I said to myself, “The worst is over, they cannot make me more than a monk.”--I was not long left in doubt. Many steps approached my cell, numerous voices were repeating, “Hasten, dear brother, hasten to the garden.” I was left no choice; they surrounded and almost bore me to the garden. “The whole community were assembled there, the Superior among them not attempting to suppress the confusion, but rather encouraging it. There was a suffusion of joy in every countenance, and a kind of artificial light in every eye, but the whole performance struck me as hollow and hypocritical. I was led, or rather hurried to the spot where I had sat and conversed so long the preceding evening. _The fountain was dried up, and the tree was withered._ I stood speechless with astonishment, while every voice around me repeated, “A miracle! a miracle!--God himself has sealed your vocation with his own hand.” The Superior made a signal to them to stop. He said to me in a calm voice, “My son, you are required only to believe the evidence of your own eyes. Will you make infidels of your very senses, sooner than believe God? Prostrate yourself, I adjure you, before him this moment, and, by a public and solemn act of faith, recognise that mercy that has not scrupled a miracle to invite you to salvation.” I was amazed more than touched by what I saw and heard, but I threw myself on my knees before them all, as I was directed. I clasped my hands, and said aloud, “My God, if you have indeed vouchsafed this miracle on my account, you will also doubtless enrich and illuminate me with grace to apprehend and appreciate it. My mind is dark, but you can illuminate it. My heart is hard, but it is not beyond the power of omnipotence to touch and subdue it. An impression made on it this moment, a whisper sent to its recesses, is not less worthy of your mercy than an impression on inanimate matter, which only confounds my senses.” The Superior interrupted me. He said, “Hold, those are not the words you should use. Your very faith is incredulous, and your prayer an ironical insult on the mercy it pretends to supplicate.” “My father, put what