"He knows the conditions on which alone he can hope for pardon (cried she), and surely they are easy ones; if he will not comply with them, let him 'embrace the beggary he deserves."

Had Viola possessed the means, her faithless lover would have been amply supplied; but the signora, who feared that some step of that kind might be taken by the generous girl, though liberal to her in every other way, dispensed her pecuniary favours with a sparing, hand. When the signora learned that Anselmo had entered the service of Montalva, as his secretary, she hoped that a station so inferior to what he had been born to expect, would soon grow irksome, and that he would gladly accept her offered pardon, and give his hand to Viola; but these hopes were destroyed by his death. He had been highly beloved, and he was deeply regretted by his aunt; but from the moment that she learned the intelli-, gence of his fate, all hope of happiness

fled from Viola. The signora declared her heiress to her large fortune; but riches could not heal the wounds of disappointed love, and though outwardly composed, she was internally miserable.

The interest which her patroness: made amongst the great, procured the pardon of her uncle; and she enjoyed the pleasure of being again clasped to the bosom of her kind and indulgent aunt. The Jew, who feared that he might be punished for his villainy, fled from Naples; and the Signora Villoni remained ignorant of the events that. had taken place during her absence..

In a few years, Viola lost her benefactress, who bequeathed to her the whole of her fortune; and never was money appropriated to a nobler purpose. Viola was indeed charity per sonified; her heart and her purse were alike open to the children of distress; and from that time till the close of her meritorious life, her only pleasure conr

sisted in the exercises of benevolence and religion. Her beauty and her fortune procured her many lovers; but never did she lose the remembrance of Anselmo, and no entreaties could prevail upon her to enter the bands of Hymen.

To the good Francisco, who had been for years her spiritual director, every secret of her soul was known and he encouraged her to hope a pardon for the only sin that had ever stained her life, a sin that had been so truly expiated. She fell a martyr to her humanity; a servant who had lived with her for years, caught a pestilențial distemper, and the benevolent Viola would attend upon her herself.

"My life is in the hands of God (said she, when her friends dissuaded her from doing so), and to his will I am resigned; but I should reproach myself for ever, if, through a fear of danger, I shrunk from what I think is a positive duty."

She caught the distemper, which at first wore a favourable appearance; but by a sudden turn it became mortal. Father Francisco was sent for, and in the most mild and parental manner, he apprized her of her approaching fate. She heard him with calmness. "The will of Heaven be done (cried she), I have but one wish, and that is, that you would not leave me, holy father, till all his over." The friar promised that he would not, and a few hours réleased Viola from a life of suffering for one of everlasting joy and peace.

Her death cast a gloom over the spirits of the good father, and Alberto staid with him a few days longer than he had intended. Every hour made the signor and the father more pleased with each other, and Alberto was surprised to find that Francisco possessed talents which his modesty had hitherto obscured, and a knowledge of the world that appeared wonderful in the inhabitant of a cloister; on his expressing

some curiosity to know the events of the monk's life, Francisco replied, "Mine, my son, is a simple tale; yet it will serve to show thee that even virtue may be carried to excess; and as it will beguile a tedious hour I will relate it.

THE FRIAR'S STORY.

"Thou art right, my son, in supposing that I was not originally intended for an inhabitant of a cloister, I am descended from one of the noblest families in Italy; and possessed of an almost princely fortune, I aspired tø the highest dignities of the state; and ambition left, as I fancied, no room in. my heart for any softer passion.

"The family of Bernini solicited my alliance, and as theirs was reckoned the most powerful at Rome, I readily entered into a treaty of marriage with a daughter of the Count Vincentio Bernini. Of the mind of Corinna I knew