of the story seemed to be indecision, but indecision finally conquered.

And now I must stop my narration, though only on the threshold; for in this peaceable place we have a post but three times a week, unless we send ten miles to Wetherby, which my letters would not be worth. So, that you may not wait three days, though it would give you a longer epistle, I close here, with a promise of more of a story which set out in joy, though it ended in mourning.

A Dios,

F.

LETTER IV.

Fitzwalter in continuation.

IF your head has not been so occupied as to make you forget you have a heart, you will have been longing for another letter from me, as much as I did for the closeting which immediately ensued with Oldacre after we had quitted the picture apartment, and returned to my chamber.

Poor fellow! it is easy to see what a deep impression the whole history of his friend's unfortunate attachment, and its consequent chagrin, has made upon him. Irritable, as I told you he sometimes is, he has, as I also told you, where he esteems, a heart full of sympathy. In this case, it is not a little strange, that although there can be little doubt, or rather none, of Sir Robert's ill treatment by this beauteous Rosalie, his sympathy is almost as lively for her as for Sir Robert himself.

"I cannot explain it," said he, when I expressed my wonder; "but I would almost hazard my exist

ence upon it that she is not the creature which yet appearances certainly make her. If ever there was real high principle in woman, it seemed to be once in her; and real high principle is not forgotten in a moment. But yet (and he paused hesitatingly), of her caprice and inconstancy there seems no doubt."

"She is alive, then!"

"I know not," said he. "Since her marriage, she has at least disappeared from the scene, and no trace of her has been found, though now some ten years have past."

"Penruddock tried to trace her, then?"

"No! that would not have been like him, though he had forgiven her. For, as you have seen, to forget, and to forgive, are with him very different. The scoundrel Hidalgo! he I mean, her partner in the dance

"What of him?" said I, hoping he would put some method in his recital.

"He cares not for the misery, the wreck he has caused to one who was, or was meant by nature to be, as loyal and true as she was beautiful. Worse than the savage who attempted to murder her, and who, if she is at all what I thought her, has murdered her happiness! He has been at every court in Europe, still attempting conquests, though no longer young; at any rate, the gayest of the

gay. We never heard, however, that she was with him, notwithstanding their marriage. What he has done with her, Heaven knows, perhaps

"This is too shocking to think of,” cried I, greatly moved. "Such a creature as she appeared to have been; such dignity in her tenderness! But if you love me, keep me not in these obscure generalities, but tell me the tale at once; you will find me an eager listener."

"True! true!" said he, as if recovering from a fit of absence; "the sight of these pictures again, and so suddenly, put me out; I had forgot you knew nothing of their history." Then, looking at his watch, as if to see whether he had time, he thus proceeded.

Story of Rosalie de Almeida.

Rosalie de Almeida, daughter of the count of that name, originally of Portugal, but long one of the first families in Spain, was left an orphan at the age of fifteen; and in those troublous times, when the throne was tottering amid the storms of revolution (I speak of the years nineteen and twenty), she took refuge with her aunt, the Marchioness de Tavora, who gladly received her, in the hope that she might, under her holy endeavours, be induced to spurn all mundane interests, and take the veil in

the neighbouring convent of Las Huelgas, of which another aunt, sister of the marchioness, was prioress. This convent was still, what it is described formerly to have been,-inhabited by a bevy of noble nuns, whose Superior, in riches and prerogatives, almost rivalled princes. *

Nevertheless, its discipline was subject to the almost absolute authority of a visitor, in the person of the Abbot of the great Carthusian Convent of Miraflores.

Both the abbeys lay on the road between Burgos and Valladolid.

By this plan of the marchioness, Donna Rosalie would, with the consent of the church, leave the large succession to which she was entitled, as her father's sole heiress, to her cousin, the marchioness's

son.

In this the marchioness was seconded, though from very different motives, by her sister, the prioress; who, though, as to manners and the maintenance of her state and nobility, a woman of the world, was at least so sincere a Catholic as to believe she could not do greater service to religion than to induce a young person of her niece's birth and wealth to devote herself to its discipline, as she herself had done. Nor was she without the ambition (which she took care properly to impress) to * See Roscoe's Tour in Spain.