Part 11 — CHAPTER XXIII. (continued 2)

“I should deceive you in allowing you to think I have always been resigned to my lot. I have not attained that self-abnegation to which some anchorites have arrived. The entire sacrifice of all human affection has not yet been accomplished. My life has been one continual combat, and the powerful influences of religion itself are not always able to repress the flights of my imagination. It often draws me, in spite of myself, into a whirlpool of vain desires, which tend toward a world I have no knowledge of, but strange visions of which are ever present to torment me.”

“If you could read my soul and learn my opinion of the world, all your desires and your regrets would instantly vanish.”

“Books have vainly taught me the perversity of mankind, and the misfortunes inseparable from humanity: my heart refuses to believe them. I am continually representing to myself circles of sincere and virtuous friends; suitable marriages full of the happiness resulting from health, youth, and fortune. I imagine them wandering together through groves greener and fresher than the trees above me, with a sun more dazzling than that which brightens my world, and their lot seems worthy of envy in proportion to the misery of mine. At the beginning of spring, when the wind from Piedmont blows through our valley, I feel its vivifying warmth penetrating me, and a thrill passes over me in spite of myself. I have an inexplicable desire, and a confused notion of a boundless happiness that I am capable of enjoying, but which is denied me. Then I fly from my cell, and wander in the fields, that I may breathe more freely. I avoid the very sight of the men whom my heart longs to embrace, and from the top of the hill, concealed among the bushes like a wild beast, I gaze towards the city of Aosta. With envious eyes I see afar off its happy inhabitants, to whom I am scarcely known. I stretch forth my hands towards them, and, with groans, ask for my share of happiness. In my agony—shall I acknowledge it?—I have sometimes thrown my arms around the trees of the forest, imploring Almighty God to infuse life into them that I may have a friend! But the trees make no response, their coldness repels me, they have nothing in common with my throbbing heart, which is aflame. Overcome by fatigue, weary of life, I drag myself back again to my asylum, I lay my torments before God, and prayer restores somewhat of calmness to my soul.”

“So, poor, unfortunate man, you suffer at once all the ills of soul and body?”

“The latter are not the most severe!”

“Then you are sometimes freed from them?”

“Every month they increase and diminish with the moon. I generally suffer most at its first appearance. My disease then abates and seems to change its symptoms: my skin grows dry and white, and I feel nearly well. But my malady would be endurable but for the terrible wakefulness it produces.”

“What! does even sleep abandon you?”

“Ah! sir, the sleepless, sleepless nights! You have no idea how long and sad they are when I cannot get a moment’s sleep, and my mind dwells on my frightful situation—with no hope for the future. No! no one could realize it. My restlessness increases

“It is possible you are feverish during these long, sleepless nights, and this, perhaps, causes a kind of delirium.”

“You think this may be the result of fever? Ah! I wish it might be true. Until now I have feared these visions were symptoms of madness, and I acknowledge this greatly worried me. Would to God they were the effects of fever!”

“Your case inspires me with a lively interest. I acknowledge that I had never imagined anything like your situation. I suppose, however, it was less sad when your sister was living.”

“God alone knows what a loss her death was to me. But are you not afraid to come so near me? Sit down there on that rock, and I will conceal myself beneath the vines, so we can talk without seeing each other.”

“Why so? No, you shall not leave me. Come nearer.” In saying these words the traveller involuntarily put out his hand to take the Leper’s, but the latter hastily withdrew his.

“Imprudent man! You were going to take hold of my hand!”

“Well, I would have pressed it heartily.”

“It would have been the first time such a happiness was granted me: my hand was never pressed by any one.”

“What! Have you never formed any ties, except the sister of whom you have spoken—never been loved by any of your own condition?”

“Happily for the human race, there is not another in my condition on the earth.”

“You make me shudder.”

“Pardon me, compassionate stranger! You know the unhappy love to speak of their misfortunes.”

“Go on, go on: you interest me. You said your sister lived with you, and aided you in bearing your sufferings.”

“She was the only tie that bound me to the rest of mankind! It pleased God to break it, and thus leave me isolated and alone in the midst of the world. Her soul was ripe for the heaven where she now is, and her example sustained me under the discouragement which has often overwhelmed me since her death. But we did not live in that delightful intimacy which I so often imagine, and which should bind together the unfortunate. The nature of our disease deprived us of this consolation. When we came together to pray, we avoided looking at one another, for fear the sad spectacle might disturb our meditations: our souls alone

“But why did you impose so cruel a restraint upon yourselves?”

“When my sister was attacked with the contagious disease to which all our family were victims, and came to share my asylum, we had never seen one another. Her fright was extreme when she beheld me for the first time. The fear of afflicting her, and still more of increasing her malady by approaching her, made me resolve on this sad kind of a life. The leprosy had only attacked her breast, and I had still some hopes of her being cured. You see the remains of a neglected trellis: it was then covered with a hop-vine that I trained with care, and divided the garden into two parts. On each side of this, I made a little path where we could walk and converse together without seeing or coming too near each other.”

“It would almost seem as if heaven wished to embitter the sad pleasures it still left you.”

“But at least I was not then alone. My sister’s presence gave some cheerfulness to my asylum. I could hear the sounds of her steps. When I returned, at dawn, to pray beneath these trees, the door of the tower would softly open, and my sister’s voice would imperceptibly mingle with mine. In the evening, when I watered my garden, she sometimes walked here at sunset, in the same place where we now are, and I could see her shadow pass and repass over my flowers. Even when I did not see her, there were everywhere traces of her presence. Sometimes it was only a withered flower in the path, or some branch of a shrub she had dropped, but now I am alone, there is neither movement nor life around me, and the path that led to her favorite grove is already overgrown with grass. Without appearing to observe me, she was constantly studying what could afford me pleasure. When I returned to my chamber, I was sometimes surprised to find vases of fresh flowers, or some fine fruit she had taken care of herself. I did not dare render her similar services, and had even begged her never to enter my chamber, but who can place a limit to a sister’s affection? One incident alone will give you an idea of her love for me. I was walking rapidly up and down my cell one night, tormented with fearful sufferings. In the middle of the night, as I was sitting down a moment to rest, I heard a slight noise at the door. I approached—listened—imagine my astonishment! it was my sister who was praying on the outside of my door. She had heard my groans. She was afraid of annoying me, but wished to be at hand if I needed any assistance. I heard her repeating the Miserere in a low tone. I knelt down by the door, and, without interrupting her, mentally followed her words. My eyes were full of tears: who would not have been touched by so much affection? When her prayer was ended, I said in a low tone: ‘Good-night, sister, good-night: go to bed, I feel a little better. May God bless and reward you for your piety!’ She retired in silence, and her prayer was surely answered, for I at last enjoyed several hours of quiet sleep.”

“How sad must have been the first days after your beloved sister’s death!”

“I remained for a long time in a kind of stupor that deprived me of the faculty of realizing the extent of my misfortune. When at length I came to myself, and was able to

“Crime! I cannot believe you capable of one.”

“It is only too true, and, in giving you an account of that period of my life, I feel too sensibly I shall fall in your estimation; but I do not wish to appear better than I am, and perhaps you will pity while condemning me. The idea of voluntarily leaving this world had already occurred to me in several fits of melancholy, but the fear of God had hitherto made me repel the thought. The simplest circumstance, and apparently the least calculated to trouble me, came near causing my eternal loss. I had just experienced a new affliction. A little dog had been given us some years previous. My sister was fond of him, and after her death the poor animal was, I acknowledge, a real comfort to me. We were, I suppose, indebted to his ugliness for his making our house his refuge. He had been rejected by everybody else, but was a treasure in the asylum of a leper. In gratitude to God for the favor of such a friend, my sister called him Miracle, and his name—such a contrast to his ugliness—and his constant friskiness often dispelled our sorrows. In spite of my care, he sometimes got out, and it never occurred to me it might injure any one. But some of the inhabitants of the town became alarmed, thinking he might bring among them the germ of my disease. They sent a complaint to the commander, who ordered the dog to be killed immediately. Some soldiers followed by several civilians came here at once to execute this cruel order. They put a cord around his neck in my presence, and dragged him away. I could not help looking at him once more as he was going out of the gate; his eyes were turned towards me, as if to beg the assistance which it was not in my power to give. They wished to drown him in the Doire, but the crowd waiting on the outside stoned him to death. I heard his cries, and took refuge in my tower more dead than alive; my trembling knees refused to support me; I threw myself on my bed in a state impossible to describe. My grief made me regard the just though severe order only as a cruelty as atrocious as it was needless, and, though I am now ashamed of the feeling that then excited me, I cannot yet think of it with coolness. I passed the whole day in the greatest agitation. I had been deprived of the only living thing I had, and this new blow reopened all the wounds of my heart.

“Such was my condition when, that same day, towards sunset, I came here, and seated myself on the very rock where you are now sitting. I had been meditating awhile on my sad lot, when I saw a newly-married couple appear yonder, near the two birches at the end of the hedge. They came along the foot-path through the meadow, and passed by me. The sweet peace that an assured happiness confers was imprinted on their handsome faces. They were walking slowly arm-in-arm. All at once they stopped; the young woman leaned her head upon her husband’s breast, who clasped her in his arms with joy. Shall I confess it? Envy for the first time penetrated my heart. Such a picture of happiness had never struck me before. I followed them with my eyes to the end of the meadow. They were nearly hidden by the trees when I heard a joyful cry. It came from the united families who were coming to meet

“Full of these sad thoughts, I forgot there is one Being who is the Comforter. I was beside myself. ‘Why,’ I said to myself, ‘was I permitted to behold the light? Why has Nature been so cruel a step-mother to me?’ Like a disinherited child, I saw before me the rich patrimony of the human race, of my share of which heaven had defrauded me. ‘No, no,’ I cried in my fury, ‘there is no happiness for thee on earth. Cease, then, to live, poor wretch! Thou hast disgraced the earth long enough with thy presence: would it might swallow thee up and leave no trace of thy miserable existence!’ My fury continuing to increase, a mad desire to destroy myself took possession of my mind. I resolved at last to set fire to my dwelling, and allow myself to be burned up in it with everything else that might recall my memory. Excited and enraged, I went forth into the fields. I wandered for some time in the darkness around my dwelling. I gave vent to my overburdened heart in involuntary shrieks, and frightened myself in the silence of the night. I reentered full of rage, crying: ‘Woe to thee, Leper! Woe to thee!’ And, as if everything conspired for my destruction, I heard the echo from the ruins of the Château de Bramafan repeating distinctly: ‘Woe to thee!’ I stopped, seized with horror, at the door of the tower, and a faint echo from the mountains repeated a long time after, ‘Woe to thee!’

“I took a lamp, and, resolved to set fire to my dwelling, went into the lowest room, carrying with me some twigs and dry branches. It was the room my sister occupied, and I had not entered it since her death. Her arm-chair was in the same spot where I moved it for the last time. I shivered with fear at the sight of her veil and some of her clothing scattered around. The last words she uttered before her departure came back to my mind: ‘I shall not forsake you when I die: remember, I shall always be with you in your sufferings.’ Placing the lamp on the table, I perceived the cord which held the cross she wore on her neck. She had placed it herself within her Bible. I drew back, filled with awe at the sight. The depths of the abyss into which I was about to plunge were at once revealed to my unsealed eyes. Trembling, I approached the sacred volume. ‘Here, here,’ I cried, ‘is the aid she promised me!’ Drawing the cross from the book, I found a sealed note which my dear sister had left for me. My tears, which grief had not hitherto allowed me to shed, now escaped in torrents: all my detestable projects vanished at once. I pressed the precious letter to my heart a long time before I could read it: then, falling on my knees to implore the divine mercy, I sobbingly read the words that will be for ever

“Cherished letter! it shall never leave me. I will carry it with me to the grave. It will open to me the gates of heaven which my crime would have closed for ever. When I had finished reading it, I felt faint, exhausted by all I had undergone. My sight grew dim, and, for some time, I lost both the remembrance of my misfortunes and the consciousness of existence. When I came to myself, the night was far advanced. In proportion to the clearness of my mind, I experienced a feeling of profound peace. All that had taken place the evening before seemed like a dream. My first impulse was to raise my eyes heavenward in thanksgiving for having been preserved from the greatest of misfortunes. The heavens had never appeared so serene and glorious: one star before my window outshone the rest. I gazed at it a long time with inexpressible delight, thanking God for granting me the pleasure of beholding it, and felt interiorly consoled at the thought that some of its rays were permitted to cheer the gloomy home of the Leper.

“I went up to my cell in a calmer frame. I spent the remainder of the night in reading the Book of Job, and the sublimity of his thoughts at length entirely dispelled the gloomy ideas that had beset me. I never experienced such fearful moments during my sister’s life. To feel her near me made me at once calmer, and the very thought of the affection she had for me afforded me consolation, and inspired me with courage.

“Compassionate stranger! may God preserve you from ever being obliged to live alone! My sister and my companion is no more. But heaven will grant me the strength to endure life courageously; it will grant it, I trust, for I pray for it with all the earnestness of my heart.”

“How old was your sister when she died?”

“She was barely twenty-five, but her sufferings made her look much older. In spite of her fatal disease, which changed her features, she would have been handsome, had it not been for her frightful pallor, the result of a living death which made me groan whenever I looked at her.”

“She died quite young?”

“Her delicate and feeble constitution could not resist so many sufferings combined: for some time I had perceived her loss inevitable. Her lot was so sad that I could not desire her to live. Seeing her daily languishing and wasting away, I felt, with a fearful kind of joy, that the end of her sufferings was approaching. For a month she had been growing weaker; frequent swoons were constantly threatening her life. One evening (it was about the first of August) I saw her so weak that I was unwilling to leave her. She was in her arm-chair, not having been able to lie down for several days. I seated myself near her, and in the profound darkness we held our last conversation. I could not restrain my tears. A sad presentiment agitated

“A few moments after, she expressed a desire to be carried out of the tower, that she might offer her prayers in the grove of nut-trees where she passed the greater part of the pleasant season. ‘I wish,’ she said, ‘to die looking at the heavens.’ But I did not imagine her end so near. I was about to take her in my arms, when she said, ‘Only support me. I am, perhaps, strong enough to walk.’ I led her slowly to the nut-trees. I made a cushion of the dry leaves she herself had gathered together, and, covering her head with a veil to screen her from the dampness of the night, I seated myself near her. But she desired to be left alone during her last meditation, and I went to a distance, but without losing sight of her. From time to time, I could see the flutter of her veil and her white hands raised to heaven. When I drew near the grove, she asked for some water. I carried her some in a cup. She wet her lips, but could not swallow. ‘I feel the end has come,’ said she, turning her head. ‘My thirst will soon be assuaged for ever. Support me, brother: aid me in crossing this gulf—so long desired, but so terrible. Support me, and say the prayers for the dying.’ These were her last words. I drew her head against my breast, and said the prayer for the departing soul: ‘Go forth from this world, my beloved sister, and leave thy mortal remains in my arms!’ I held her in this way for three hours, during the last throes of nature. At length, she quietly passed away, and her soul left the earth without a struggle.”

At the end of this account, the Leper covered his face with his hands. Sympathy deprived the traveller of the power of speaking. After a moment’s silence, the Leper rose. “Stranger,” said he, “when grief or dejection comes over you, think of the Leper of the city of Aosta, and your visit will not have been a useless one.”

They walked towards the garden-gate. As the officer was about to go out, he put his glove on his right hand. “You have never pressed any one’s hand,” said he. “Do me the favor to press mine. It is the hand of a friend who is deeply interested in your lot.”

The Leper drew back some steps with a kind of terror, and, raising his eyes and hands towards heaven, he cried: “O God of goodness! pour down thy blessings on this compassionate man!”

“Grant me another favor, then,” resumed the traveller. “I am going away. We may not see each other again for a long time. Can we not write one another sometimes, with the necessary precautions? Such a correspondence might divert you, and it would afford me great pleasure.”

The Leper reflected for some time. At length he said, “Why should I cherish any delusion? I ought to have no other society but myself, no friend but God. We shall meet in his presence. Farewell, kind stranger, may you be happy! Farewell for ever!” The traveller went out—the Leper closed the door and drew the bolts.

ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE HOLY FATHER.

FROM LA CIVILTA CATTOLICA.

Porta Pia, and an entry effected into Rome in the name of Italy.

The machinations of those who effected that entry in order to subvert the authority of the Pope are still at work, and most assiduously, in endeavoring to convey the impression that this act of theirs now stands before the world simply as an accomplished fact, and as such is, if not approved, at least tolerated by those most interested in contesting it. Thus they endeavor to delude the world and lull to sleep the misgivings of Catholics; for in order to confirm and strengthen this impression there is scarcely a stratagem or subterfuge to which the government (itself the author of the fact) does not resort, through the journalism notoriously in its pay, not only throughout the Peninsula, but elsewhere.

This government, which sprang from accomplished facts and falsehoods, hopes by means of these same accomplished facts and falsehoods to place on a firm foundation its sway in the Campidoglio, which now rests on a very insecure footing; therefore it endeavors to persuade the world, and especially Catholics, that the Supreme Pontiff, while in its hands and under the law of its Guarantees, is actually more at liberty, more independent in action, and more useful to the church, than he was when he reigned as a sovereign prince and was bona-fide ruler in his own state.

The absurdity of this claim is manifest; but what absurdity is there of which the government of the Subalpinists in Italy does not avail itself, in order to attach credit to itself, by means of the arts learned in the school of its great father and master, Bonaparte?

It is important, therefore, or rather we should say it is absolutely necessary, that an honest and Christian journalism should perseveringly oppose manifest truths to this interminable repetition of falsehoods, paid for by the Subalpine rulers, respecting the present condition of the Holy Father; and thus, by ventilating fraud, undeceive simple and credulous minds.

With this intention, we shall in few but veracious strokes of the pen describe the undisguised reality of the state in which the head of the church, the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX., finds himself at the present moment in Rome, six months after the solemn publication of the laws of the Guarantees.

II.

We assert, then, that the Pope endures imprisonment in Rome at the hands of the Subalpinists, and that his captivity, instead of being mitigated, is every day aggravated. This is proved by the following facts:

1. He is in the hands of an inimical power, or, as he himself has defined it, he is sub hostili dominatione constitutus. Now, he who is in the hands of an enemy, however much that enemy may affect humanity and regard towards him, is beyond all contradiction his prisoner.

3. The Holy Father, being in the hands of an inimical power, which has dispossessed him by violence of all sovereignty, and substituted its own in lieu of his, is now by this same power subjected to every kind of ridicule in his double majesty as pontiff and as king: burlesque honors are proposed to him, which would by preference be offered to him publicly, in order to induce the idea that the Holy Father, by accepting them, is reconciled to the government, and has basely ceded to it the inalienable rights of God, of the church, and of the Catholic world. Moreover, the obligation resting on the Sovereign Pontiff of preserving his own dignity keeps him shut up in the Vatican: the outer doors of which are guarded by a guard of honor formed of the self-same wretched soldiery who, led on by Subalpine leaders, made the breach in the Porta Pia, and struck to the earth his own sovereign banner in Rome.

4. Finally: The inimical power in whose hands the Holy Father now finds himself is, either from weakness or malice, incapable of protecting his august person from any kind of insult. So that, supposing it to be morally possible for him without compromising his dignity to leave the cloisters of the Vatican, yet would a material obstacle present itself in the outrages and dangers, threatening life itself, to which he would be exposed amid the crowds of cut-throats, atheists, and the lowest rabble of every country, which this power has congregated together and maintains in Rome, to represent in that city the people of the plébiscite; that is, a people hostile to the Papacy and rebellious to its throne.

These are the principal facts which most clearly demonstrate the state of imprisonment into which the Sovereign Pontiff was thrown, by the events of the 20th September, 1870, in his own city of Rome: and we defy all the sophistry of all the journalists, politicians, and diplomatists of the government, seated as it is in the metropolis of the Catholic world, to deny it, without denying the light of the sun at mid-day.

Besides this, that the captivity of the Holy Father has been aggravated during these fourteen months is seen and felt by every one who is not under the influence of the Subalpinists, those men who have carried their effrontery to the length of placing the centre of their government in the city of Rome itself, and with one of their laws of guaranty for the independence of the Pope have arrogated to themselves the right of imposing the future conditions of his existence in the Vatican, as if they were the rulers of the Holy See. Whoever considers the forces of moral and material hostility that these Subalpinists have accumulated in Rome against his prerogatives, cannot fail to perceive that the rights which in this city are most readily trodden under foot, are, after those of God, those of the Pope: and the person who is the most insulted therein is, after that of Christ, precisely IX., decreed sovereign and inviolable, by the law, as the person of the king himself.

From this it follows that the Holy Father is at the present moment the legal prisoner, in Rome, of the Subalpine government, since by the aforenamed laws, termed those of the Guarantees, not only has that government confirmed the violent spoliation of himself, but, in spite of the opinion of the world, has dared to justify the act by defining in those laws the limits of the liberty it intends to concede to him. This is neither more nor less than the usage commonly observed towards a prisoner of state or of war.

By this means, the present condition of the Pontiff in his own Rome is in truth that of the strictest imprisonment by the anti-Christian sect, headed by the government of the Subalpinists now lording it over Italy.

III.

Neither is the Holy Father, Pius IX., the prisoner of an inimical power solely on account of his civil prerogatives: it is his ecclesiastical jurisdiction that is aimed at more than anything else: while usurping the regal crown, it seeks equally to abolish the Papal tiara; and, if, after having barbarously dispossessed him of his kingdom, it does not also make a barbarous assault on the majesty of his Pontificate, this reserve arises only from the hindrance occasioned by very strong and extrinsic causes, and not from good-will or any other than a reprobate sentiment.

This profound enmity of the Subalpine rulers to the Pope as the supreme pastor of the Catholic Church is so well-known as to need no demonstration. Yet for superabundance of proof, we will say that it is shown:

1. By all that has been previously done against Catholicity for twenty-two years past in Piedmont, and for half that time throughout the rest of Italy, by the faction to which these rulers belong—a faction whose politics are expressed by an obstinate war, sometimes of a Julianistic character, sometimes of that of a Nero—a war which attacks directly or indirectly the church itself, and all connected with it, and this in such a manner as to render it palpable that not even the Unity of Italy is desired for its own sake, but rather as a means by which to work the destruction of Catholicity and the overthrow of the Papacy.

2. It is shown by the special mandate which the Subalpine faction superintending the Masonic government of the Peninsula have received from the General Masonic Order—a mandate bidding them become the immediate (because proximate) instruments of the downfall of Papal Rome, the centre of the Catholic Church; and which then bids them proceed to the utter spoliation of the Sovereign Pontiff himself—two events which it hopes will lead (if that were possible) to the annihilation of Catholicity, that being the ultimate end of all the conspiracies of the order.

3. It is shown by the open confessions made in Rome, throughout Italy, and in all Europe, by journalists united by the bonds of faction to our Subalpine patrons; and even more by the discovery, lately made, that persecution is already well established in Rome against everything ecclesiastical or Catholic—whether in things or persons.

From these facts, it is demonstrated that the Holy Father is now the prisoner in Rome of a government IX. is in the hands of Turks embittered to the last degree. Against him and his tiara every tool is made use of, and with equal skill—whether it be cannons or sophistry, buffoonery or the judgment-hall, the pick-axe or calumny.

IV.

The war of Nero carried on against the Holy Father and the church is at the present moment tempered by the war of Julian. It was for this purpose that our Subalpinists devised the law of the Guarantees, behind which they know how to mask the ugliness of their rascalities, at least for a time. “Do you see?” they exclaim in every tone, and have had written in every language: “We have surrounded the Pope with so many privileges that the like was never seen. Of what do you complain, O you insatiable Catholics? Have we not constituted the Pope inviolable as is the king? What more would you have?”

We would have—simply that the Pope should be inviolable, because he is a king in earnest truth, and not a mere semblance of one. But to this question of to-day concerning the sovereign and personal inviolability of the Pope, facts are the best reply. These show that practically he is as inviolable as the first article of the statute, and has been inviolable throughout the kingdom.

This privilege of inviolability implies that the person sovereignly inviolable can, in no manner whatsoever, be publicly insulted without the offenders being repressed by force and punished according to law.

Meantime, first, it is a notorious fact that every day the sheets belonging to this faction, not excepting those of the government throughout the kingdom, and particularly in Rome, insult, hold up to derision, and vilify the inviolable person of the Pope: and that he is exposed to ridicule by means of most infamous caricatures; and all this with impunity. For it is notorious that newspapers are very rarely sequestrated on account of this continuous and general contravention of the laws of the Guarantees; and up to this period not a single sentence has been issued from the tribunals against the insulters of his Pontifical Majesty. On the other hand, the exchequer is most rigorous against any one suspected of insulting the royal majesty through the press; chiefly, however, against the Catholic journalists who defend the inviolable Pontiff. Thus (a fitting commentary), of ten law-suits against offenders by means of the press, eight are commonly to the prejudice of Catholics accused of offences against the king or of illicit voting. The inviolability of the Holy Father, therefore, practically resolves itself into the fact that every miscreant may insult him with impunity, while it is dangerous for an honest Catholic to defend him through the press.

It is a notorious fact, and of very frequent occurrence, that groups of ribald men, escaped from every Italian galley, stroll along the avenues, singing shameful verses, nay, even menacing ones, in regard to the Supreme Pontiff, and it is no rare thing for a rabble to provoke and utter cries of a character most outraging to his name and honor. And yet the police, ever ready to hinder similar outrages in regard to the king, become deaf or soften down the words when they hear the Holy Father

3. It is a notorious fact that large bands of these miscreants have often gathered together beneath the walls of the Papal palace to load the guard stationed inside with foul language, that guard being placed there by the consent of the laws of the Guarantees to the Pope. Yet here they hurl their blasphemies and imprecations against the sanctity of the Pope, in the very hearing of the guard of honor placed there by the government, and these have never been known to discompose themselves on this account even to the extent of a gesture of disapprobation toward the rogues thus possessed by the devil. Yet woe to the wretch who should commit any such atrocity at the portals of the Quirinal, when inhabited by certain other inviolable persons in the kingdom of the Subalpinists! Therefore, once more: the inviolability of the Pontiff is practically converted into a tacit license for the lowest rabble to insult his person beneath the very portals and under the windows of the Vatican.

We might enumerate many other facts, equally well known, to demonstrate how little is the practical value of the sovereign inviolability decreed to the captive Pope; but let those already brought forward suffice. These being admitted, it will be understood that his Holiness, thanks to the distinguished privilege conferred on him by our Subalpine gentlemen, not only could not make his appearance in the streets of his own Rome without manifest risk of life, but he could not even descend to the basilica of the Vatican to perform a sacred function, without exposing himself to contumely and insult by the very side of St. Peter’s tomb, and even on the altar itself. The occurrences of the 8th December, 1870, in the vestibule of the Pontifical residence; of the 10th March, 1871, within the Gesù; and of the 23rd, 24th, 25th August, close to the Lateran and the Church of Maria soprà Minerva, confirm what we assert.

This, then, in its veritable reality, is the present condition of Pope Pius IX. in Rome, after the oft-repeated promulgation of the law declaring him an inviolable sovereign like to the king.

Nor may the salaried apologists of our patrons treat these matters as a jest in order to exculpate themselves from so horrible an abomination. Facts are facts, while words are but breath. The most irrefutable facts prove that if our Holy Father were to show himself publicly in the Rome of to-day, uncivilized as it is by these Subalpine rulers, the treatment he would receive would be no other than such as is given alike to the clergy as to the most holy things, nay, to Christ himself, in the blessed sacrament of the altar.

Now, it cannot be denied, for the Roman journals attest it, citing days, time, places, names and surnames, that every day priests or religious, bishops or prelates, are attacked or ill-used in the most populous districts of Rome; that almost every day sacred images are stoned or profaned at the corners of the streets; and not unfrequently the adorable eucharist, when borne as a viaticum to the sick, is exposed to mockery in the public square, even by those who wear military badges; and all this occurs with the tacit consent of the officers charged with keeping order in the city, no one of whom has ever IX. would be safe either in the city or in the Vatican from the outrages or even from the blow of these most civilized gentlemen who form the new Roman people!

Be silent, as long as we live, O whited sepulchres!—race fit only to patronize assassins!

V.

Moreover, the Holy Father, by the noble munificence of his jailers, is reduced to that degree of poverty that, were it not for the oblations of the faithful, he must either pine in misery or suffer the degradation of his majesty. The glorious conquerors of Rome have taken everything from him, excepting the Vatican. And if, up to this time, they have refrained from sacking this edifice, it is owing to that veto of potentates which, as yet, has forbidden them access to it. Jugglers are in possession of the Quirinal; and they drew near to the public treasury of the Pontificate with the sword of guardianship. In one flash of lightning, the Pope saw himself deprived of everything. With a simple substitution of voters, the Pontifical estate is become the Subalpine estate—a magnificent example! since then magnificently imitated by the Commune of Paris!

Is is true that, in their law of the Guarantees, they have deigned to assign to him a species of civil list amounting to several millions of lire. But this was done for the sake of appearance alone; for well they knew that, in practice, this article would have precisely the same effect as that other article prescribing the famous inviolability. How in fact could these persons, who for five-and-twenty years have known the magnanimous firmness of character of Pius IX., persuade themselves that he would lower his dignity to accept an obolus from their criminal and sacrilegious hands, in compensation for the kingdom they have taken from him? They understood beforehand that this would be impossible, because, even admitting that the Holy Father had been willing to admit their civil list, under the title of restitution, a thing not unlawful in itself if done without prejudice to his rights, they perceived only too clearly that he could not have done so in view of the malignant interpretations which would have followed the act, occasioning an immense scandal and clamor; as if the Pope by receiving a modicum of that property the whole of which belongs to him by right had conceded the rest, over which he has immemorial claims.

The matter, however, took such a shape that these brave gentlemen had an ample field in which to display large figures, and even to acquire the name of prodigality in offering round numbers to their victim. Yes, indeed, they were prodigals, like unto those who offered vinegar to the crucified Saviour.

God, ever adorable in his providence, has so disposed events that the hearts of Catholics throughout the world have been moved to compassionate their father in chains, and the gold of their filial charity has abounded so wonderfully in his hands, that he has been able to succor most plentifully those of his faithful servants who have fallen into straits for conscience’ sake, together with many indigent persons who have no other resource for a livelihood than the heart of the imprisoned Pontiff.

The glory of this munificence is due to God alone, and the merit of it is to be ascribed to the faith of

VI.

The jailers, and the friends and servants of the jailers of the Holy Father, boast very much of the ample liberty he enjoys, which he can use during his imprisonment for the regulation of the church and for performing his office as Pope.

Let us examine a little in what this charming liberty consists. This at the very first glance resolves itself into the following very clear formula: The Pope is at liberty to do that—and that alone—which the inimical power whose prisoner he is permits him to do.

And, in point of fact, the Holy Father is under this power, which holds him in its hands, being sub hostilem potestatem redactus, as he himself lately expressed it again in the Encyclical of May 15, 1871, in which he formally repudiates the Guarantees offered him in exchange for his principality. He who is under is dependent, and can do only that to which he who is above consents. Thus the liberty of the Pope is subject to the limits which the inimical power, his oppressor, pleases to impose on him. And this same law of the Guarantees is the proof of the fact, inasmuch as it contains only a concession of hypothetical privileges. But he who concedes accounts himself superior to him to whom the concession is granted. Whence the true measure of the liberty of Pius IX. as Pope, is now simply the arbitrary will of Italian Masonry, governed by the Subalpinists. This is a certain fact as to matters in general.

With regard to particulars, the Holy Father uses such liberty as he owes to his own courage and diligence, and the inimical power, his jailer, cannot hinder him, though it would willingly do so, because a power stronger than itself, or certain human respects, forbid such opposition. As, for example, the Subalpine patrons would gladly hinder his Holiness from publishing bulls or encyclicals, in condemnation of their lofty enterprises against God, religion, and the Apostolic See. His Holiness, not being at liberty to publish them in Rome under their very nose, sends them out of Italy to be printed, and in this way publishes them.

Now, what can these very liberal gentlemen do in a case like this? Drag the Pope before the courts, and imprison him in the Castle of St. Angelo? Most willingly would they do this; but the rulers of Europe would oppose it. There is, then, no course left to them except to interdict the publication of them within the state by sequestrating the papers which reprint these acts of the Pope; and this they did with the Encyclical of November 1, 1870. If for others of later appearance they have shut their eyes and left them to their course, it has been because they have at last been obliged to pay some regard to public opinion, and have found their account in putting on a semblance of toleration.

In a similar manner, the Holy Father, finding that the Subalpine masters trumpeted forth loudly to for this time it does not appear that they will refuse entrance into their dioceses to the new pastors.

But thieves and loyalists as they are, they have taken advantage of this act of the Holy Father, turning it to their own interest by cowardly proclaiming in every direction that the Holy Father, by thus using the privileges comprised in the law of the Guarantees respecting the induction of bishops into their sees, has, ipso facto, accepted their law, and thus retracted his refusal of the 15th of May, 1871, and thus (according to them) the conciliation between themselves and the Holy See is in good progress; and it will not be long before the august Pontiff will give up his kingly crown into the hands of John Lanza: and in this manner the Italy of the Subalpinists will enjoy the distinguished honor of having the supreme head of the church for the court-chaplain, and most humble servant of his ministers: an honor certainly due to their merits as against faith, morality, and Catholic worship.

This attempt at imposition is the more senseless in that it supposes that the Holy Father had no other right to nominate the bishops than as a state privilege; while the contrary is the case: the insertion of the state in these nominations is merely a privilege granted by the Pope: and the fact that the Pope has not thus recognized the Subalpine gentlemen outside of their own territory proves that he, far from accepting their Guarantees, does not even recognize them as juridically masters of the district in which they compiled the documents.

But the senselessness of the attempted imposition serves to prove how determined they are to prevent the Holy Father from exercising any true liberty.

VII.

Excepting the above-named use of his liberty, which the Holy Father courageously exercises in spite of the useless repugnance of his jailers, he in everything else remains in all the bonds and perplexities with which they think fit to surround him. And thus:

1. Pius IX. is not at liberty to have a journal in Rome, in which he may contradict the infinite number of falsities which the inimical power, through its officious and official oracles, utters against his person, against his acts, those of his court, or those of the ministers of the Holy See.

Should he do so, the executive would subject him to all those rigorous measures and sequestrations to which all the Catholics sheets of Rome have been subjected which have endeavored to defend his honor or his cause.

2. Pius IX., as we have already pointed out, is no longer at liberty to publish his bulls, encyclicals, or allocutions in Rome: the fact being that the inimical power, in this same law of the Guarantees, has reserved donec transeat iniquitas.

3. Pius IX. in Rome is not at liberty to contradict publicly by telegraph the inventions concerning himself and his Pontifical acts which the inimical power, his jailer, diffuses through the world by this said telegraph; because the telegraph is under the express authority of said power, and the use of it can be denied or rendered difficult at its pleasure. Thus, last March the world received through the telegraph fabulous accounts of a consistory held by the Pope, of an allocution and other particular acts, all invented on the spur of the moment; and before the world can detect the disgraceful imposture, it may expect that for many days the falsehoods will be printed even in Catholic journals, because our Subalpine gentlemen have it in their power to mislead by means of the telegraph the Catholic community with any kind of misrepresentation concerning the words and deeds of the Pope, without the possibility of the Pope’s being able immediately to undeceive them. Whence the necessity that no reliance at all should be placed on any telegram that the agency of the Subalpine government transmits from Rome respecting the words or affairs of the Supreme Pontiff.

4. Pius IX. in Rome is not at liberty to carry on a private correspondence securely with the bishops and faithful of the world by means of letters or telegrams; because both mails and telegraphs belong to the inimical power which holds him captive. As an inimical power, precisely because it is inimical, believes itself licensed to take every precaution regarding its imprisoned enemy, so no one can ever feel certain that the secrecy of the letters interchanged has not been violated, or that the telegrams have not been altered or refused. All this is a question of trust. But meanwhile, setting aside the case of telegrams directed to the Pope, and refused by the telegraph officials, it is a fact that the Holy Father is obliged to keep his missives away from the mail-bags of Italy when he has any important correspondence to carry on, as also other persons are obliged to do when they wish to communicate with the Holy See. We repeat it: it is a question of trust: and how much those who now command in Rome may be trusted is attested by the honesty they have thus far exhibited.

5. Pius IX. in Rome and in the Vatican is not at liberty to receive every one who wishes to visit him, or whom it may be necessary he should see. All the approaches to the Pontifical palace are guarded by bailiffs of the inimical power. And these men, though they may often allow the goers and comers to be insulted by the rabble, never, however, omit to play the spy. This office they perform so well that certain journals written by those who are doubly linked with the police of the Subalpine gentry would be able to furnish, if needed, the daily list of all those admitted to the vestibule of the apostolic residence. It is clear from these circumstances that it depends solely on the arbitrary will of

In addition to these facts, the stonings, menaces, hootings, and similar acts of urbanity practised in the streets of Rome and in the neighborhood of St. Peter’s toward the numerous Catholic deputations which came this year to pay their homage to the august prisoner, by the rabble introduced through the breach of the Porta Pia—these attest how great is that beautiful liberty enjoyed by the Pope in receiving visitors, whether they come of their own accord or that he sends for them.

6. Pius IX. in Rome will not long be at liberty to regulate the religious institutions, and to employ them in the service of the churches, as is right and proper he should do; because the inimical power is already on the alert to deprive the Holy See of this strong spiritual garrison: it is abolishing the orders, and depriving them of their property. The superiors-general of these orders, which are immediately subject to the Pontiff, will in a short time have no bread to eat, no room to shelter them; they will wander homeless over the earth, and lose their subjects on all sides. In this way, one of the instruments of the Pontiff, most useful to him in the administration of the church, will be, as it were, broken in his hand, and in the city in which the Head of the Catholic Church has his seat the profession of the evangelical state will be prohibited; and the Pope will not be even able to give shelter to the various missionaries who are toiling in the cause of Christianity among the heathen of Asia and America, when they come to render an account of their newly founded missions; for in all Rome he will no longer have a religious house of hospitality at his disposal.

We will not lengthen details in order to enumerate the various other particular modes of liberty which the Holy Father can no longer exercise in the fulfilment of his supreme office. The exposition we have already given suffices to prove that he has no liberty, save such as the author of his affliction permits, either from his own authority or from other causes; the permission being compulsory on the part of the enemy, and most unwillingly given. And this is the marvellous liberty now enjoyed by the Sovereign Pontiff, thanks to the Subalpinists, who have dethroned him and uncrowned him in Rome itself, out of love, as they say, for the holy church!

VIII.

Let us be just. Our Holy Father might be in a much worse condition than the present one. His jailers as yet do not do him all the wrong they would wish, but are not able to do him. This is true enough. They have not as yet assailed the Vatican, and dragged Pius IX. to the Fortress of Ancona, as they have done to the illustrious Cardinal Morichini, Bishop of Jesi; or to a convent of Turin, as they have done to the imperturbable Cardinal de Angelis. We repeat it: they would like to do this, but are not able; they would like to do this and worse, but the governments of Europe have absolutely forbidden them to set foot in the Vatican, or to lay hands on the Sovereign Pontiff. This and nothing else restrains them in the frenzy of their hatred from beheading him at once. This and nothing else constrains them to moderate the impetuosity of their hatred in carrying on their persecutions against the Papacy. Fear compels these little Neros to don the mantle

From this we may infer that the only and ultimate safeguard remaining at the present moment to the Holy Father in the Vatican is not the law called the law of the Guarantees, nor is it trust in the governors, but the corps of diplomatists who have received from their various governments instructions to maintain inviolate the asylum of the octogenarian Pontiff, and to protect his august person.

Were it not for this only and ultimate safeguard, Catholics throughout the world would now be weeping over their Father exiled from Rome, and perhaps as having already expired from the bullets or sword of the enemy.

IX.

But how long will this only and ultimate safeguard endure?—this protection which renders the life and person of the Holy Father secure in Rome?

As long as the Subalpinists hold the reins of government in Italy, there seems no reason to fear that the security will become less. These men know too well that, were they to lose Rome, they would lose everything; and the only mode of keeping possession of Rome a little longer is not to violate the Vatican. But on that day on which the Italian faction shall get tired of being led by these ten or twelve Piedmontese who form the perpetual Zodiac of the ministry; on that day when this faction is weary of seeing all the master-machinery of the state, the army, finance, bureaucracy, and diplomacy regulated by Piedmontese; on that day when it takes it into its head to render the government of this factious Italy Italian in its manner of rebellion, rather than provincial—on that day the danger will arise that even this said only and ultimate safeguard may lose its force. For in such a case, the mobocracy would come to the surface, and a scene of destruction would be inaugurated varying little from that carried out by the Commune of Paris.

The dilemma is this: either the Subalpinists or the Socialists must prove fatal to our poor Italy, prepared as it is for revolution. God alone knows what is to happen in the proximate future. But it is certain that the present condition of the Holy Father in Rome cannot endure much longer: it is certain that any agreement between him and his spoilers is utterly out of the question. It is also certain that Europe could not tolerate for a series of years that the Head of the Catholic Church should be held as a prisoner by the men who at the present day hold dominion throughout the Peninsula; and, finally, it is certain that in his own time God will interfere, and his intervention will not be to reward the persecutors of his Vicar on earth. These four certainties keep the world in suspense, and the authors and approvers of the transitory triumph of the Porta Pia in uneasiness.

But in this extremity of affairs and in this intense trepidation of mind, what is the duty of Catholics?

Is it to wish for an agreement between the Pope and the inimical power which oppresses him?

This is but to assume the office of members of the faction, under the disguise of zealous Catholics. He only who hath his part in the leaven of the Pharisees can believe it possible for the successor of St. Peter to sacrifice the eternal rights of Christ to the interests of Belial.

IX. remains in Rome, notwithstanding the satanic tempest which howls so wildly and so furiously against him, it is a sign that he knows such to be the will of God, and therefore makes it his duty to remain. In the course of events, we shall see that, if the Pope has remained in Rome, it is because it was best that he should remain there.

The real duty of Catholics is, on the other hand (besides assiduous prayer, conformably to the example of the primitive Christians when St. Peter was in vinculis), to unite and so work as to hasten the liberation of our common Father.

The Italian factionists reproach us Catholics of Italy with being parricides because we implore from God and men this sighed-for liberation. But it seems to us that it is they who commit parricide who, having imprisoned the Pope after officially declaring such an act to be contrary to the laws of nations and more than barbarous, have brought injury and evil upon the country which we are ever praying God to diminish. As for the rest, we Italian Catholics do not understand how the independence, glory, and prosperity of our country can be made properly to consist in the spoliation and captivity of the Supreme Pontiff, and in being trod under foot by the Subalpinists.

We, imploring the liberation of our Holy Father, have not the remotest idea that that liberation will cost any part of Italy its independence. The honor of calling foreigners into Italy, to subject it to personal advantage, and to pay for such power by presenting these foreigners with Italian provinces, nay, with the keys of Italy itself—we Catholics leave this to the idol of the Subalpinists, to their Cavour, and to their sheep of every color.

We Italian Catholics, we say it again, do not desire that the domination of our Father should bring with it any foreign domination, not even over a hand’s-breadth of Italian territory. The shameful traffic in people and in Italian territory could not be for us a means of liberating the Pope, as for the Subalpinists it has been a means of the so-called liberation of Italy. In this we are all agreed; we wish for the independence of justice, because justice alone ensures the happiness of nations.

But we Italian Catholics can of ourselves do little, because the dominant inimical power, being the enemy of the Pope, is naturally our enemy also, although we are the immense

This is not the case with the Catholics of the other countries of Europe. It is their peculiar privilege so to address themselves to the work that their governments may not only preserve and strengthen the only and ultimate safeguard of the life and person of the Holy Father in Rome; but that they may use their power for his liberation; that thus with his full liberty the true liberty of the people may again flourish—that liberty which is now enchained with Pius IX. in the Vatican.

ELINOR’S TRIAL.

reasons are so absurd, that Protestant boarding-schools cultivate too much of folly and fashion, etc.! I have no patience with Elizabeth. If she were a Catholic herself, there might be some excuse for her wanting her daughter educated among them, but as she is a Protestant, I think Protestant schools might serve her purpose.”

Thus speaks Mrs. Robert Lennox of her husband’s sister. She is talking to her husband while they are going home from a fashionable church in New York. She is a stately, handsome lady, to whom her rich attire seems well adapted. Just now she appears displeased and somewhat more haughty than usual, but the face is refined and the bearing polished.

More gentle than his wife in the treatment of the question in hand is Mr. Lennox.

“Well, I cannot say Elizabeth is so very far out of the way. You know John’s means are very limited, and these convent schools are cheaper than ours. Besides, Elizabeth knows Elly cannot compete in dress and all the furbelows, as our Lizzie does. So she prefers not to have her exposed to the uncomfortableness of being the subject of derogatory comparisons. You know young folks are keenly sensitive on such points.”

“But, Robert, must such reasons

Mr. Lennox smiles significantly as he replies: “I would not object to Lizzie’s receiving some of that peculiar, modest, quiet air which those sisters have and so often impart to their pupils. There is some nameless charm, I cannot describe it better than by saying it is the opposite of that which the young ladies of the present day cultivate for their deportment, and which seems to belong almost exclusively to this training.”

“Pshaw! Mere affectation of meekness. The girls are all the same at heart. Why should not they be? I tell you it isn’t worth the risk! Mark my words, you’ll see the effect on Elly’s religion.”

“Well, you know Elizabeth said that even that change of religion was better than the irreligion or isms of the day.”

“Now, Robert, it is just to oppose me that you so persistently uphold Elizabeth in this. Is it to be supposed that girls of sixteen are going to take to isms in Protestant schools or irreligion either? Why, they don’t know enough for that, at their age!”

“I do not dispute you. I only think that Elizabeth has preferred for Elly this risk rather than have her of John’s state of mind. And that is why John is so easy in the matter. Being of no faith himself, he prides himself on being also of no prejudice. ‘The greater the faith, the greater the bigotry,’ he says.”

“And I think you are just about as bad as John,” says the lady. “I don’t believe you listened to the sermon at all to-day.”

This last charge passes unanswered, because they have arrived at their own door, where we leave them.

II.

Two years after this, the cousins, Lizzie Lennox and Elinor Lloyd, have returned from their respective schools: Lizzie from her fashionable seminary, where she has received every advantage that money could purchase, and where she has associated with the daughters of the wealthiest, if not the most refined, families in the land. And if wealth will not purchase the means and open the way for refinement, pray what will? Does it not free the path from the thorns of toil, give time and means for culture and for travel, and to surround ourselves with the ennobling influences of art? And, above all, does it not grant us the free indulgence of generous impulses? Do not all the mortal ills of flesh which bear upon the rich bear also on the poor, with more added to stand in the way of their refinement? It would seem so.

Lizzie Lennox has all these advantages of wealth in her case, but her cousin Elinor Lloyd is the daughter of a poor man. Poorer now than he was two years ago, when he let his prudent wife have her way in the choice of a convent school for her daughter. Elinor has been very happy with the sisters, to whom she has become sincerely attached. Their good example has not been lost upon her, but she denies indignantly that any under-handed means have been used to warp her religious feelings. They have simply and honestly acted out the dictates of their own faith, exacting from her

The cousins are nearly of an age. Lizzie is named after her father’s sister, Mrs. Lloyd, and Elinor after her aunt, Mrs. Lennox.

These cousins are strikingly alike, and yet singularly unlike in their appearance. Their faces seem to have been cast in almost the same mould, so exactly does every feature correspond, but the coloring is so different that they present opposite types of beauty. For they are very beautiful. Lizzie is exceedingly fair, with light auburn hair and hazel eyes; the same reddish tint seeming to lurk in the eyes and lashes as in the hair, which peculiarity any close observer of faces may often see in this type. But Elinor’s eyes are a dark brown, and her hair is very dark. She is too fair and pale for a brunette, and her eyes are not black enough. Despite this difference in color, they are very like her cousin Lizzie’s light orbs in expression. It is as if a painter should take two sketches of the same face, and simply change his colors for the touching of them. Indeed, a cast of each might pass for the same person, so like are they, even to the carriage of the head, the turn of the throat, the curve of the shoulders. I am thus exact in my description, because out of this wonderful likeness and difference of face and form came Elinor’s trial. But now, at eighteen, Elinor’s face is softer and sweeter than that of her blonde cousin. This difference is seen as they are listening or talking, more than while their faces are in repose. Shall we say that it is the result of training and education that Elinor seems the more refined and modest? Or is it only a matter of inheritance, or a trick of manner betokening nothing? I present them thus to the reader, who may guess somewhat of their respective characters, as they sit chatting their cousinly talk in Lizzie’s room. Lizzie is dressing to go out with Elinor, and talking while she proceeds with her toilet.

“But, Elly, where is the harm of flirting a little, so long as you do nothing serious, and never commit yourself?”

“I think you do commit yourself, Lizzie, when you put pen to paper to answer a stranger’s letter, and when you cannot tell whether he is true or false. More likely he is the latter, from the very fact of his trying to draw you on. How do you know how he may use your letter?”

“But I haven’t signed my name, only my own initials. I use E. L., not L. L. And you know I am known rather as Lizzie Lennox than Elizabeth Lennox. No one ever thinks of me as Elizabeth—I don’t seem to be that to myself. Now, you are either Elinor or Elly, but I am just Lizzie. So you see I can hide under my own honest initials.”

“Ah Lizzie! why hide at all? Give it up. I don’t like this kind of thing. I don’t believe the men who write to girls in this way care one bit for them, except to make them contribute to their own amusement, and feed their conceit. What good does it do when you don’t even see each other?”

“But we may, after, if we want to, you know.”

“I shouldn’t want to see him, Lizzie; I hope you will never meet.”

“Now, Elly, it is just being with those sisters that makes you talk so.

“But, Lizzie, sisterified or not, you know I like fun as much as other girls, only I don’t think this is fun: I think it isn’t just right. It is making yourself too cheap. I don’t like men well enough to do so much for their amusement. I may be peculiar, but I certainly hate a covert thing, and personals in the newspapers are very covert and very cowardly. Mamma says a respectable paper will not publish them. Besides, you dare not let your father and mother know this, dare you?”

“Oh! of course they would get a great scare, and think I was going to do something much worse than I mean. But that doesn’t prove I would do wrong.”

“No; but, Lizzie, don’t you hate to deceive them when they trust you so freely? Is this stranger to be trusted and they not?”

“Well, I don’t want to give pain to either papa or mamma; and so if they don’t know it, they will be spared all pain and fuss in the matter, and nobody hurt. Now I’m ready. Let’s go.” And the two leaving the house, the subject is dropped for the time.

* * * * *

Only one month has passed since the cousins have had this morning’s talk together, but it has brought a great change in their feelings and relations to each other.

First, Elinor has quietly but courageously avowed herself a Catholic. Alone and unsupported she has made the great step—alone she goes to Mass and Vespers—and without sympathy from her family she practises faithfully all the observances of her church. In all this, she has shown her aunt Lennox a wise prophet, but that lady is no less indignant on that account. She enlarges upon her favorite text, and congratulates herself that she has taken no such risk for her own daughter’s falling into Popish pitfalls, and traps set for the young and innocent. Lizzie chooses to consider herself called upon to give up the intimacy and nearly all intercourse with her cousin. In this she is secretly governed by a sense of annoyance at Elinor’s persistent discountenancing of her clandestine correspondences, but she makes a show of setting herself against “Popish influences.”

The parents of Elinor have taken the matter with seeming indifference. She loses none of their love in consequence of the change in her faith, and they are sure she is quite as good a daughter as ever. But a greater trouble, if this is a trouble, now absorbs their minds. John Lloyd has failed in business and failed in health. He is a broken-down man. In this emergency, Elinor has determined to accept a situation as musical governess in a wealthy family. She has felt the tug at her heartstrings, no less from her wounded pride in the matter of her changed social position, than in the hard necessity to leave her home and parents. She is no saint, only a good, pure-minded girl, who is scrupulously conscientious in all things. She battles against a bitter feeling of almost envy toward the better luck and easier life of her cousin. She does not really wish Lizzie to be as poor as herself, and she is sure she would rather be herself than Lizzie, but she does wish her father and mother were in the same comfortable ease that her uncle and aunt enjoy. Her uncle is disposed to be very kind to her, but he is hampered by his

Elinor soon settles into the new and changed relations of her life, the more easily because her employer proves exceedingly kind. As her forte is music, she is of course, in the exercise of that accomplishment, brought into more constant contact and intercourse with the guests at the house than the mere instruction and supervision of her pupils would demand. Her seat at the piano calls to her the attention and brings upon her the criticism of many who otherwise might never notice her. And so it has happened that young Mr. Schuyler, the brother of her hostess, has more frequently than any other turned the leaves of her music, sang to her accompaniment, and gazed admiringly upon the pretty hands moving over the keys and upon the charming face turned to the pages before it. Mr. Schuyler is an agreeable young gentleman, good-looking enough, graceful enough, and flattering enough in his address to ladies to win their pleased recognition of his attentions. But buzzing in his admiration around each sweet flower like the veriest male coquette of a bee, he is just unstable enough also to tantalize the fair recipients of his attentions. Elinor likes him, but with a little reserve. She is not of a distrustful nature, but she does not quite like Mr. Schuyler’s manner to her. He has been very unreserved in his admiration. He has attempted some sentimental love-making, but there has always been a sort of holding back—a non-committal manner, which has not seemed to her straightforward and manly. It has appeared to her that he has been attempting to gain her regard without making any actual avowal himself, and that he is trying to amuse himself or feed his own vanity at her expense. Yet she is so afraid of being unjust to him, knowing that her position in the family may make her unduly sensitive, that she strives against this feeling. He really is very kind in a great many little ways which she would be ashamed not to acknowledge, and she thinks, if she were not a governess for his sister, she might receive his attentions in a less cavilling spirit.

In the meantime, Mr. Schuyler studies Elinor from quite a different point of view from any she imagines. He has found by repeated experiment that he cannot make her understand or respond to various little devices which he has been in the habit of using to flirt with certain school-girls whom he has met often in his daily walks and rides. All these signals pass unnoticed upon the convent girl. But in fluttering thus around this innocent, cold light, the gay moth has got his wings singed. He does really love Elinor as much as such a nature is capable of loving. Just because she has not responded to any of his advances, he has become more seriously interested

He has been amusing himself by conducting a correspondence with some unknown lady who has signed herself “E. L.” This incognita has at last yielded to an oft-urged request to send her picture, and a fine photograph of a beautiful girl has come to him. Whose face does he see? “By all that is astounding,” he says, “Miss Lloyd!” He cannot be mistaken. The very same. It is a Rembrandt shadow picture, by which he studies every line of the profile, while it shows also the contour of the full face. There is the dark hair waving from the same fair forehead. The eyes are the same dark orbs with the long lashes, only he has never seen just this bright, coquettish, laughing look in them before. It is wonderfully charming in the picture, but he really does not like it as well as the other thoughtful, intent gaze he has lately come to love so well.

“The demure little cheat!” he says. “Well, she is very versatile, it must be confessed. Who would have thought it? But stop. This may be a cheat. The whole thing is so unlike her. I do believe the writer has sent Miss Lloyd’s picture instead of her own. ‘E. L.’ L for Lloyd certainly, and I saw Elinor Lloyd written on her music, and, by Jove! I think it was the very writing. I’ll look again”—which he does, and finds it to be just the very same E and L; and no wonder, for Lizzie Lennox wrote it in other days, when she gave that music to her cousin.

Then he observes, what careless Lizzie has never once thought of, the name of the photographer, to whom he goes at once, and by no very adroit means discovers the name of the fair original. And here he is again astonished. He finds he has the photograph of Miss Lizzie Lennox. “L. L.,” he says to himself, “and not E. L., after all,” and in his bewilderment it is actually some days before it occurs to him that Lizzie is the pet name for Elizabeth.

Now, having arrived thus far in his pursuit of information under difficulties, he is unable to decide whether she is Miss Lennox or Miss Lloyd. In this dilemma he questions his sister, Mrs. Wood, and determines that she can scarcely be any other than the Miss Lloyd she professes herself. So the false name has been given the photographer, he thinks; and he makes up his mind that Miss Lloyd, though unquestionably very charming, is about as profound a coquette as he is ever likely to meet.

And so believing, his manner toward Elinor takes on a new phase, which pleases her so little that it has the effect of making her more reserved than heretofore. She now avoids him as much as possible, and yet she is conscious of a sharp pain in thus being driven to an attitude of defence. She is young and frank, and would be light-hearted if in her true position. She has really liked Frederick Schuyler because she found him companionable in a house where all are either older or younger than herself except him. Their tastes are similar in many things, and of late he had seemed to her more honest. But now he treats her with a certain familiarity of look and tone which offends her nice sense of propriety. She cannot guess at the false position in which she is placed. She has been very reticent concerning herself and her relatives. True pride and dignity have made her forbear to allude to her wealthy relations, the Lennoxes, now that she is supporting

But Frederick Schuyler does not give up his interest in this baffling coquette, for so he firmly believes Elinor to be. Does he not hold the proof? He has sent his own picture to E. L. at the usual address, and he firmly believes that Elinor Lloyd has that picture in her possession. He waits until he receives an acknowledgment from E. L.; and then he watches Elinor. He is prepared to see her betray her overwhelming confusion at discovering who her unknown correspondent is. What, then, is his amazement, his disappointment, at seeing no ripple of disturbance in her composed demeanor! He is exasperated at this assurance. He determines to shake her composure by direct means. The opportunity offers only too soon.

As the last music lesson for the day is finished and the pupil bounds from the room, Mr. Frederick Schuyler presents himself with a peculiar and, to Elinor, an offensive smile on his face.

“Miss Lloyd,” he says blandly, “do you not think it is time to drop this masking?”

Elinor looks at him with wondering and offended eyes. They are not the eyes of either the picture, or the soft brown ones he has known hitherto as hers. They flash up to him in angry brilliancy as she replies:

“I do not understand you, sir!” So sure is he, and so amazed at this stubbornness, that he almost as indignantly replies:

“And I am sure I cannot understand you!”

“I do not desire that you should,” she retorts: “but I think it due to myself to demand why you presume to thus address me, Mr. Schuyler.”

The offended tone remains, but blended with it is a little faint touch of grieved feeling, which his nice ear detects.

“Can you pretend to still treat me as if you did not recognize me? Is my picture so unlike me that you do not know the original?”

“Your picture!” and such a world of wonderment is expressed in her voice that he thinks she ought to be on the stage for consummate acting.

“Perhaps you do not recognize this,” and he holds before her a picture so like herself that she is confounded. For the moment, she really does not see her cousin Lizzie as plainly as herself. The photograph, like one of those libellous stories which are true in detail, but false in implication, has given the reddish tint in Lizzie’s hair, brows, and lashes dark as her own, and there is the blonde cousin presented, the very counterpart of the brunette, one. The light hazel eyes are in the photograph, dark as Elinor’s own.

Elinor gazes speechless for a moment. Then she recognizes the dress of her cousin, and the expression not her own which she knows so well. It all rushes upon her perception at once—the cruel mistake—Lizzie’s clandestine correspondence, of which she disapproved so much—the well-known resemblance between them—the picture more like herself than Lizzie—she sees it all, and she sees

“Checkmate!” says Mr. Schuyler. His tone stings her.

“Mr. Schuyler, this is not my picture. I never sat for it.”

“Miss Lloyd!”

“I repeat, sir! This is not my picture, and I wear no mask.”

“But you are ‘E. L.,’” he says, showing her his last missive with that signature, “and you acknowledge receiving one like this,” and he confronts her with a duplicate of his own picture.

“My name is Elinor Lloyd, and I have never written to you, and this is the first time I have seen either of these pictures,” she replies, glancing disdainfully at each of them.

“Do you know whose this is?” he asks.

At this point-blank question, Elinor bursts into tears. The cruelty of the position in which she finds herself is too much for her. She will not betray her cousin, and she knows that on her own denial alone, against overwhelming evidence, rests her defence of herself. And in tears, distressed beyond measure, she rushes from the room. Mr. Schuyler gives a long, low whistle. He is inclined to believe she has told him the truth, in spite of all he knows and has seen. For why does she wish to deny it? What girl who could do this thing would so spurn the accusation? Her proud assertion, “My name is Elinor Lloyd, and I have never written to you,” rings in his ears. He believes it, as we will all of us sometimes believe, apparently against reason. He knows that he wishes to believe in her truth, despite his vanity.

A little book lies near a roll of music on the piano, with her gloves and hat. He takes up this book and examines it, for no reason except that it appears to belong to her. A copy of Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge, with a mark at the description of the Lord George Gordon Riots, and pencil marks on the margin. He turns idly to the fly-leaf, and sees written, “Elizabeth Lennox, from her brother Robert.” O cruel evidence! “Circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator,” again shows Elinor as a liar. What can he do now but doubt her word? Elinor meanwhile is pacing her room in a tumult of agitation. Her first impulse is to abandon her engagement with Mrs. Wood at once, and go to her parents. But poverty among other hard impositions forbids us acting on the dictates of pride, be it ever so honorable. Elinor shrinks from staying, but also shrinks from giving her reasons for leaving to her parents or to Mrs. Wood. To give false ones, covering her real one, never for one moment occurs to her. She feels keenly the cruelty, the injustice of the false position in which Lizzie’s folly has placed her. Yet she is too generous at heart to betray Lizzie even to her mother. She knows that when Lizzie told her of this “bit of fun” it was in confidence, and troublesome as the trust has proved, she will keep it until she is released. But she feels how hard it is to know how to act rightly, unaided, uncounselled. One refuge, however, she has—one counsellor who never betrays his trust, and who does not require her cousin’s name or identity. O blessed privilege of a Catholic! The safe, sure refuge of the confessional is Elinor’s. What better human guide and comforter than her pastor can she seek? No fears of a betrayed trust is here. So to him she goes, and from him she receives the needed strength to bear her heavy trial—for

This rouses Elinor to such a degree that she nearly forgets her counsel to “return good for evil.” Prayer and meditation, however, those best of medicines for disturbed souls, work their good effect for her, and she is able still to bear in silence, trusting that time will lift the stigma off her. So she shuns as best she can all intercourse with Mr. Schuyler.

And thus about three unhappy weeks pass. Mr. Schuyler gives up trying to enlist Elinor’s attention, and he leaves the last communication of E. L. unanswered. He receives no more of those interesting missives. Lizzie, thoroughly frightened, stops this amusement for herself.

But at last the Nemesis, circumstance, overtakes her—the circumstance of meeting Mr. Frederick Schuyler at a party. A very small circumstance apparently, but pregnant with much for three individuals. He sees her standing not far off from him, in all the blaze of gas-light and full dress. He has never seen Elinor at this advantage, but the perfect profile and the proud carriage of the head impress him at once. Yet those blonde locks and the light laughing eyes—these are neither like Elinor’s nor the picture. Lovely this face certainly is, but he remembers the darker one as pleasing him more. The remarkable resemblance, however, has so startled him, that he actually trembles as he asks a friend who has been talking with her to tell him her name.

“Miss Lennox.”

“Do you know her first name?” he says, with forced composure.

“Oh! yes. Lizzie Lennox and I are old friends; let me introduce you.” And in the brief interval before he is presented, he only remembers that it is L. L. and not E. L., the lady of the photograph but not of the correspondence.

Lizzie passes this ordeal with a frightened, throbbing heart, but a polite, calm exterior, thankful to be very soon claimed for the next dance, and to leave Mr. Schuyler for the present at least. She is a foolish coquette, but not an evil-minded girl. Weak, vain, selfish, but not bad-hearted—she has really felt troubled by the mean way in which she has refused to clear her cousin of the suspicion which she has brought upon her, but her selfishness has prevailed in the matter. To protect herself has seemed to her of more consequence than to clear Elinor. And the possible consequence of her parents knowing all about this little escapade has not seemed to her at all pleasant to contemplate. And so she has been vacillating between the desire to do right and the fear of exposure ever since she has received Elinor’s letter. She is equally ignorant of how much she may be known to Mr. Schuyler, or how far she may be protected by her cousin’s magnanimity. She moreover finds Mr. Schuyler better than his photograph on inspection, as a handsome face generally is better than a photograph of it. Meanwhile, that gentleman has recollected that Elizabeth and Lizzie are the same name. He has been watching this airy, graceful

Lizzie has the command of this situation better than Mr. Schuyler. She knows the full purport of the question, but being asked by Elinor in a letter to speak the truth while she can yet hide it, and by handsome Fred Schuyler looking into her eyes, and knowing her for the girl he has been flirting with, are two very different matters. Here she may make a virtue of necessity, and perhaps a conquest at the same time. Ah! if our good deeds are viewed by the light of our motives, how very much the virtue in them seems to pale.

Lizzie says with charming candor, “Oh! yes, she is my cousin; do you know her?”

“Yes, Miss Lennox, and I saw your name in a book she had—Barnaby Rudge—and it appeared to have been quite attentively read, from the marginal notes I saw.”

Lizzie shows a momentary astonishment. “Why, Mr. Schuyler, the only copy of Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge I have is at home in the New Riverside set papa gave me only lately—since”—she pauses a little confused—“since I have seen Elly last. Besides, I don’t make notes on the margins of my books, and I am quite sure Elly would not in mine. I think it could not have been my name you saw.”

“Indeed, I saw it, ‘Elizabeth Lennox,’ and from your ‘brother Robert.’”

Lizzie laughs merrily, and she looks the very image of innocent fun as she responds to this triumphant assertion.

“Oh! that’s a good joke! My brother Robert! Why, that’s papa! And the name is his sister’s. She is Elinor’s mother. Why didn’t she tell you! I hate such mysteries.” And she shoots such a glance as would once have been a challenge irresistible. He keeps up the badinage, but he is answering that question, “Why did she not tell you?” in a manner not flattering to Miss Lennox, but very much so to Miss Lloyd. The former young lady is not quite pleased with his abstracted manner. True, he dances with her, chats with her, compliments her, but she is not satisfied. She is wishing that this was the first intercourse she has had with Mr. Schuyler, and that he had nothing to remember of Lizzie Lennox, and no previous knowledge of her—she has an intuitive sense that she does not stand as well as her cousin in his estimation, and that her chance would have been better if she had never written to him. He, however, generously makes no allusion to that correspondence. He is ashamed of it for her, and heartily wishes it had never been. He is thinking how he can make his peace with her cousin, of whom he feels glad to think so well, when he is startled by the words.

“Elinor and I are not friends now as we were once—before she became a Catholic.”

“Miss Lloyd a Catholic!”

“Yes, Mr. Schuyler, did you not know that? All of the family are Protestants except her. Her mother was so very liberal as to allow her to be educated at a convent of those Sisters of Charity, and this is the result. I have never been intimate with her since.”

Mr. Schuyler is very uncomfortably herself, on her own crude knowledge of the world, and on just as much advice as she chooses to accept. She never bares her conscience and her soul, as Elinor does, to any one. Therefore, she not only robs herself of the counsel of wiser heads, but she never brings upon herself that searching self-examination necessary to the seeing of herself rightly. Had she done that, had she been forced to look with this introverted gaze upon herself, she would have shrunk from placing herself in this doubtful position. She will remember this in after years with a sense of annoyance, if not of any deeper sentiment. And yet her present feeling toward Elinor is one of irritation. She knows that Elinor was right in her advice to her, and that she can look down upon her from a more exalted height. The fact that she has not taken airs of superiority on herself has not lessened Lizzie’s resentment. The feeling that she is on a lower moral plane than that of her Catholic, convent-educated cousin, is a sufficient grievance of itself, and admits to her unregulated mind of no extenuation in Elinor’s behalf.

It is not very easy for Mr. Schuyler to find an opportunity to explain to Elinor his enlightenment and change of views. She shuns him so sedulously that he begins to think he will have to tell her at the table, in the presence of the family, that he has met her cousin. True, he could do this without any indelicacy, but he has planned a little programme of a tête-à-tête, which he thinks more pleasant, to himself at least, than leaving her to draw her own conclusions from such meagre information as he can give her in the presence of others. Moreover, he does not wish to startle her before others by mentioning Lizzie’s name—a sore subject to her, he suspects.

But Mr. Schuyler has not made up his mind that he is willing to take a Catholic wife. He is at present only desirous of establishing the old pleasant, friendly footing between Elinor and himself—possibly a more tender one; but he will not yet commit himself. Not until he has seen how deeply rooted is her Catholicism—only an ism, it seems to him. He is getting impatient, however, at her continued indifference toward him. He sees that he must make his opportunity; and, being a young gentleman fertile in expedients, he resorts to waylaying her at the hour when her last music lesson is ended for the day.

Elinor’s face flushes and her brow contracts—a little indignant flash is in her brown eyes as he confronts her. She remembers the last scene between them at that hour by the piano, and it does not tend to soften her manner. Evidently he has got all the work to do, unhelped by her. So he starts off, as is his usual manner, with an abrupt introduction of the subject.

“Miss Lloyd, I owe you an apology for declaring that I had your picture in my possession. I know now whose picture it is.”

“You should have known it was not mine, sir, when I told you so,” and she blushes again at the thought of Lizzie’s being known. Even when the blame is lifted from herself, she does not rejoice in her cousin’s exposure.

“I did know it, Miss Lloyd; I did believe you, on my soul, against all the wonderful evidence of the remarkable likeness to you. I did believe that picture was not yours, or that at least you did not send me it, or know of my having it. But how could I know that it was your mother’s name in your book?”

He stops confused. Elinor has never yet known of that added testimony against her. Had she known it, she would at once have told him it was her mother’s name. There was no reason for any mystery concerning that, it being no part of Lizzie’s confidences to her. If he had had that clue, perhaps he might have come to some imperfect glimpse of the truth. In answer to her wondering inquiry, “What book?” he says now humbly:

“You left a book you appeared to own on the piano. I took the liberty of looking at it, and read a name in it which I knew belonged to her whose picture I mistook for yours. Your cousin, Miss Lloyd, is very like and very unlike yourself. I met her a short time since at a party; and even seeing her before me, the original of that picture, I could scarcely believe it was those fair locks which the sun made so dark in her picture. I may certainly be excused for not remembering this trick of photography, especially when you two are in features so very similar.” He says this last pleadingly, because the displeased look is not gone from her face.