And then she went home, and sat down by the ashes that Lady Sackvil had left on her domestic hearth. XVI. In the morning, she found Lady Sackvil taking breakfast in her own room, looking pale and worn from the effects of reaction from fever and excitement. "How do you feel?" she asked. "Horribly cross. I think all other sensations are merged in ill-temper." "A certain sign of convalescence. I am glad to see it." Amelia laid down her egg-spoon, and sank back in her chair. "I wish," she remarked, "that it had pleased Heaven to make some variety in the shape of hen's eggs. I am so tired of seeing them always oval." "You don't want any of these things, do you?" asked Mary, surveying the rather solid repast on the table. "No--I can't bear the sight of it," said Amelia wearily. "Rest on the couch until I come back." And Mary arranged the cushions with a skilful hand, and left the room noiselessly. Presently she returned, bearing on a pretty little tray a glass filled with some frothy preparation, and two transparent wafers. Amelia revived at the sight. "I have dreamed of such things," she said. "This is the very apotheosis of breakfast!" XVII. Mary left Lady Sackvil with Padre Giulio, and went into the church to pray for the happy result of the interview. She had passed some time at the Lady chapel, with its brazen gates and oriental lamps, and before the jewel-incrusted high altar, and was kneeling in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, when she heard the door of the confessional behind her open. She looked round. Padre Giulio had entered the confessional; Lady Sackvil was kneeling at the grating. She was sitting within the railing of the chapel when Amelia joined her. Mary looked at the beautiful creature; there was a peaceful smile on her lips, a holy light in her eyes; the pride, the caprice, the egotism were not there; she looked like a penitent child. As they passed through one of the sombre side aisles, Amelia paused before the crucifix hanging on the wall. "I have confessed my sins and received absolution," she said; "are you willing to kiss me?" And so the sign of peace was exchanged before the image of the great reconciler; and they passed out from the shadows of those grand old arches into the sunshine of the Piazza. THE IRON MASK. Through an oversight, the article on the Iron Mask in our March number, which had been lying on hand several months, was sent to the printer without its necessary complement, which we now publish. In January, 1869, it was announced in the _Moniteur Universel_ that M. Marius Topin, a young author who had already distinguished himself by a work of remarkable historical research, had succeeded, by dint of laborious examination and the intelligent study of a mass of old official documents, in unearthing the secret of that sphinx of history--the Man with the Iron Mask.