“‘You are still young and beautiful,’ said he; ‘you have naturally a kind and warm heart, an enthusiastic disposition, and a sincere love of truth and justice. But, my dear child, your education has been sadly neglected, and you have been trained to walk in a path that leadeth where you would not go. You have fallen among evil counsellors and evil doers, and you are entangled in the meshes of the adversary of souls. This cause, to which you give your heart, soul, and body, is not what you think it. You sought liberty, you have found slavery; you sought love, and you have found only hatred; you sought virtue, disinterestedness, fidelity,—you have found only vice, selfishness, and treachery; you sought peace and social regeneration,—you have found only strife, war, murder, assassination, confusion, anarchy, and oppression. For yourself personally, the only peaceful days you have known for years have been during the last few weeks; and your present peace is disturbed by a mysterious dread, that I need not name or explain to you. “‘Ask yourself, my child, and answer to yourself, honestly, if you have not been deceived, and been acting under a fatal delusion. Ask yourself if it was not a terrible mistake you committed, when you took Satan for the principle of good, and the Christian’s God for the principle of evil.’ “But, _padre mio_, what shall I do? I have a suspicion that what you say is true. I have been a proud, vain, rash, wicked woman. But what shall I do? I am bound in chains; I am damned. “‘Damned, not yet, my child. As long as there is life, there is hope. Those chains must be broken.’ “But they are too strong for me. “‘True, true, my child, but not too strong for the Lion of the tribe of Judah. You must be assisted——’ “At that moment the door was burst open; a gang of ruffians rushed in, and fell upon the aged monk. The old man gave me one look, made rapidly the sign of the cross over my head, as I had dropped on my knees to implore them not to harm him. I might as well have pleaded to my marble jambs. They threw him down. He rose upon his knees, folded his hands across his breast, and with a bright, celestial expression, exclaimed, O God, pardon them, and lay not this sin to their charge, for they know not what they do,—when the leader of the gang plunged a dagger to his heart. His blood flowed out into my face, and over my dress. After a minute, they took up the body, and removed it and themselves from my house. Though protected, to some extent, by our American character, we did not think it prudent to remain longer in Rome, under the Republic; and the next day we started for Paris, where we rejoined you.” “But you never told me of the fate of that old monk before.”