“Melmoth listened to her with feelings that it is better to suppress than explain or expatiate on. Thus solemnly adjured, however, he promised that the child should be baptised; and added, with an expression which Isidora’s delight at this concession did not give her time to understand, that it should be a Christian as far as the rites and ceremonies of the Catholic church could make it one. While he added many a bitter hint of the inefficacy of any external rites--and the impotentiality of any hierarchy--and of the deadly and desperate impositions of priests under every dispensation--and exposed them with a spirit at once ludicrous and Satanic,--a spirit that mingled ridicule with horror, and seemed like a Harlequin in the infernal regions, flirting with the furies, Isidora still repeated her solemn request that her child, if it survived her, should be baptised. To this he assented; and added, with a sarcastic and appalling levity,--“And a Mahometan, if you should change your mind,--or any other mythology you please to adopt;--only send me word,--priests are easily obtained, and ceremonies cheaply purchased! Only let me know your future intentions,--when you know them yourself.”--“I shall not be here to tell you,” said Isidora, replying with profound conviction to this withering levity, like a cold winter day to the glow of a capricious summer one, that blends the sunshine and the lightning;--“Melmoth, I shall not be here then!” And this energy of despair in a creature so young, so inexperienced, except in the vicissitudes of the heart, formed a strong contrast to the stony apathy of one who had traversed life from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren, or--made it so. “At this moment, while Isidora wept the cold tears of despair, without daring to ask the hand of him she loved to dry them, the bells of a neighbouring convent, where they were performing a mass for the soul of a departed brother, suddenly rung out. Isidora seized that moment, when the very air was eloquent with the voice of religion, to impress its power on that mysterious being whose presence inspired her equally with terror and with love. “Listen,--listen!” she cried. The sounds came slowly and stilly on, as if it was an involuntary expression of that profound sentiment that night always inspires,--the reverberating watch-word from sentinel to sentinel, when wakeful and reflecting minds have become the “watchers of the night(14).” The effect of these sounds was increased, by their catching from time to time the deep and thrilling chorus of the voices,--these voices more than harmonized, they were coincident with the toll of the bell, and seemed like them set in involuntary motion,--music played by invisible hands. (14) He called unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night?--Watchman, what of the night?----ISAIAH.