The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874

by Various

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French of Madame Craven, Author Of “A Sister's Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

IV.

From that day I resumed my former habits, and, except the liveliness of my childhood, which had disappeared never to return, I became almost the same as before. This sudden and unhoped-for restoration brought cheerfulness once more to our gloomy house, and a ray of joy to the sad, anxious face of my father. I say anxious; for it was more so, if possible, than sad. There was an anxiety in his look, whenever he turned towards me, that was quite inexpressible. Had he so trembled for my life, and afterwards for my reason, as hardly to credit I was restored to him? Perhaps so; but if his anxiety had really outlived its cause, though that might explain his profound solicitude, it could not account for the coldness of manner he now manifested, instead of the warm affection to which he had accustomed me from infancy. And when I endeavored to fathom the cause of this change, only one reason occurred to me, which I repelled with terror, and on which my mind utterly refused to dwell!...

I had not seen my brother (the elder of the two children by my father's first marriage) since my illness. When I went to the supper-table for the first time, he was not there. But this did not cause me any great regret, for I feared Mario more than I loved him. I was glad, therefore, to find no one present but my father, my sister Livia, and Ottavia, who, from a waiting-maid, had merited, from her long services, to be promoted to a duenna. I say duenna, and not governess; for she would scarcely have been able to teach us to read and write. But she knew many things much more important. She was one of those good, simple souls, so frequently met with in Italy among people of her station, uncultivated from a human point of view, but wonderfully conversant with everything relating to the principles of the Christian religion, the practice of charity, and the grandeur of the Christian's hopes. Sometimes thoughts came spontaneously from her heart and lips which were far more admirable than are to be found in any book. Therefore my father, notwithstanding her undeniable ignorance in many respects, did not consider her useless in the training of his children, but treated her with a consideration bordering on respect.

Hitherto my life had been surrounded by, and, so to speak, permeated with a mother's love; and when I was suddenly deprived of this light and warmth, an overpowering grief, as has been related, took possession of my soul, which at first it seemed impossible I could survive. Now I was calmer; but there was still a void, a wretchedness, a grief in my heart, which, [pg 334] though not as violent as at first, had become fixed and permanent. I thought sometimes of young birds, whose mothers had been caught in the fowler's net, left pining alone in their nests, or of poor little fish drawn out of the water and left on the shore in the heat of the sun. I seemed to be like them: my heart and soul were out of their element and deprived of their necessary food.

In this state, Ottavia and my kind sister Livia were the only persons in the house who afforded me any comfort. I always sought shelter beside them; for the sight of my father increased my depression, and I was afraid of my brother's stern and penetrating eye.

Mario, at this time, was twenty-seven years of age. He was remarkably handsome at first sight; but his stern, gloomy face, seldom expressive of kindness, and never of affection, greatly modified this first impression, and it was nearly impossible to feel entirely at ease with him. Nevertheless, he had many noble qualities, and in some respects resembled my father; but he had not inherited his kindness of heart.... My brother was unyielding and jealous, and, if not bad at heart, at least had an unpleasant disposition, and was often in an insupportable humor. He made me habitually feel that he regarded me as the child of a different mother, and could not forgive Livia, who was his own sister, for loving one who, according to him, had come to rob them of the full share of their father's love.

At the time of Fabrizio dei Monti's second marriage, Mario, then only twelve years old, had manifested so great a repugnance to it, and so much ill-will towards her who was about to take his mother's place at their fireside, that Fabrizio decided to send him away; and for several years Mario lived away from home, only returning from time to time for an occasional visit. It was only within a year he had become a permanent member of the household. At that time the malady that was to prove fatal to my mother had begun its ravages, and the remaining days of her life were already numbered. Whether it was this knowledge, or because he was softened and disarmed by the charm of her beauty and the angelic sweetness of her manner, it is certain he became quite a different person, and, in her presence at least, was never harsh or severe towards us. Perhaps this change would have been complete could he have remained longer under the sweet influence we were all so unhappily deprived of!

On the 15th of July—the day that ended so fatally—Mario was absent. He had left home the evening before, and, when he returned, he learned, at the same time, the calamity that had occurred and that which so speedily threatened to follow. I have been assured that he manifested a lively grief at my mother's death, and had inquired about me, not only with interest, but even with anxiety. But the recollections of the past were still vividly impressed on my memory, and it was not to him my heavy, bleeding heart turned for consolation at such a time.

At the end of our gloomy repast, my sister was informed that there were several visitors in the drawing-room. It was the hour when my father received his friends and the clients he had not been able to see in the morning. Livia immediately left the table, and I was about to follow her, when my father [pg 335] stopped me, and kept me beside him till he had looked over some documents which had just been brought him. He then gave me his arm to the salon. This was certainly done with kindness and an air of affection, but with a kind of gravity constantly perceptible as he kept me beside him the remainder of the evening. How gladly I would have exchanged this affectionate solicitude, that could not lose sight of me, for one such look as I used to receive!...

It was strange! but when I thought of my mother, no remorse was mingled with so affecting a remembrance. I felt as if a constant communication was maintained between her soul and mine; that she saw my repentance, was aware of my resolutions, and, to sum up my impressions—childish, perhaps, but so lively and profound that they have never been effaced—that peace had been made between us. But the thought that my father might be aware of all that took place during that hour of fearful memory, or the possibility of his knowing the foolish act I committed in my mother's presence, alas! while she was dying, and that he might attribute the dreadful catastrophe that followed to that act, inspired me with genuine terror, which was only checked by a secret, constant conviction that my mother had not been able, during the few short hours of the following night, to divulge my secret to any one, even to him. But then, who could have told him, or what other reason could there be for the change that made me feel as if I had lost my father as well as my mother, and that the heavens were darkened on that side also?

The next day I was alone in my chamber, collecting my books in order to resume my studies, as if my mother were still alive to direct me, when my sister came in breathless, as if from running. She stopped to take breath, and locked the door before speaking.

Livia was two years younger than her brother. She was not handsome; but her form was noble and graceful, her eyes were strikingly beautiful, and her smile, though somewhat sad, was incomparably sweet. But a nose somewhat too long, a chin a little too short, and thick hair parted on a forehead a little too low, made her rather unattractive at the first glance, and perhaps caused the absurd notion I shall soon have occasion to refer to. But all who knew Livia regarded her as an angel of goodness, and forgot the defects of her face.

“Gina!” she hurriedly exclaimed, as soon as she could speak, “my dear little Gina! Mario has returned, and is coming up to see you. Listen to me,” embracing me as she continued. “I think he means to tell you something that will distress you—something I wish you could remain for ever ignorant of. But it is useless. He is determined you shall know it, and, after all, it may be as well. Only, carina, promise to be calm. If he scolds you, or speaks in his usual severe way, do not answer him. Control yourself. Let him go on, Gina mia! I beg of you. No matter if he distresses you for a moment; he will soon go away, and I will console you....”

I had no time to answer these incoherent supplications, for at that very instant I heard my brother's steps in the gallery. He stopped at my door, and, finding it fastened, gave a low knock.

“You need not worry,” I whispered to Livia. “Remain here, [pg 336] and I will do as you wish, I assure you.”

Livia embraced me once more, and then opened the door. Mario entered. I advanced to greet him, and then stopped with surprise at seeing him so pale and altered. He looked as if he had been ill also. Neither of us spoke for a moment, for he likewise seemed to be astonished at my appearance. He must, indeed, have found me greatly changed since he last saw me. I had grown so tall during my illness that my face was nearly on a level with his, and the long black dress I wore made me appear even taller than I really was. I had lost the freshness of my complexion. The thick, fair hair of which I had been so proud no longer shaded my face, but was drawn back from my forehead, and confined under a black net. He had no reason now to chide me for too much attention to my appearance. He could not make any cutting jests about my hair, as he used to when I arranged it like a crown on my brow, or left it in long curls at the caprice of the wind, according to the whim of my vanity. He had left me a child—a child wilful and full of freaks, whom he only noticed in order to correct for some fault. He found me a young lady, whose sad, distressed, and somewhat austere look seemed the very reverse of the picture left in his memory. He seemed affected to find me so changed, and held out his hand with a cordiality much more affectionate than usual. Then, after a moment's silence, he said with a kindness he had never before manifested:

“You have passed through a great trial, my poor Ginevra. I have felt for you, and participated in your grief, I assure you.”

I was touched by these words, and was about to reply, when he resumed:

“Yes, you have suffered, I see; but it seems also to have been a great benefit to you.”

My heart was ready to burst, and I at once drew myself up: “Benefit to lose my mother! O Mario! how can you say so?”

He frowned. “I do not mean in that sense, Ginevra, as you must be aware. But perhaps I am mistaken,” he continued, resuming his ordinary tone, which I only remembered too well. “It may be you have only changed exteriorly. I hope it is otherwise, my dear sister, and that your childish vanity and foolish coquetry....”

“Mario!” murmured Livia in a beseeching tone, scarcely raising her eyes from her work. This exclamation escaped her almost involuntarily; for she knew better than any one else that the least reply only acted as a stimulant when he was inclined to be ill-humored or angry. Therefore this slight interruption only served to make him continue in a louder tone.

“Yes, it is possible her coquettish disposition may not be overcome, and it would not be right to spare it. I am only acting as a friend by speaking plainly about the misfortunes it has caused.”

O merciful heavens!... Did he know my fearful secret, and was he about to tell me what I dreaded more than anything else in the world to hear? My heart throbbed violently, but I breathed once more when he added:

“Thank God, Ginevra, in the midst of your tears, for having taken your mother out of the world without the least suspicion of your behavior.”

Though these words allayed my chief anxiety, they seemed far more [pg 337] insulting than I merited. A flush rose to my cheeks, and I haughtily drew up my head, as I replied: “I never concealed anything in my life from my mother, Mario. And now she is gone, who alone had the right to admonish me, it belongs to my father, and not to you, I beg you to remember, my dear brother.”

I sat down and leaned my head against my hand, that he might not perceive the heart-felt anguish he had caused me. I was by no means prepared for what followed.

“You are mistaken, my charming little sister,” he said in a cool, ironical tone, “and it is well to tell you, as you seem to be ignorant of it, that when young ladies play a game that endangers their reputation and the honor of the name they bear, they often oblige their brothers to take a part in it.”

Notwithstanding my folly and defects, I was really nothing but a child at that time, and his words conveyed no definite meaning to my mind. I turned around and looked him in the face with an air of surprise that showed I did not comprehend him. The eyes that met mine were no longer full of mockery, but sad and stern.

“Look at that, sister,” he said in a grave tone, throwing on the table a small paper package that was sealed. “The contents of that paper may recall a circumstance you seem to have forgotten, and perhaps make you understand my meaning.”

I hesitated a moment. I was afraid without knowing why. But finally I took up the paper, and tore open the wrapper. A withered flower fell out, which I gazed at with surprise, but without the slightest recollection.

“Do you not recognize it?”

I shook my head.

“Nevertheless, that flower came from your hands.”

I shuddered. He continued in the bitterest tone:

“It is true it was then red, ... red as the blood that had to be shed to restore it to you.”

The horror with which I was filled at these words struck me dumb. I clasped my icy hands, and turned deadly pale, without the power of uttering a word! Livia sprang from her seat.

“Mario, you have no heart, or soul, or mercy! Go away. It was not your place to tell her about this misfortune.”

But Mario, excited as usual by contradiction, continued without any circumlocution, and even more violently than before.

“No, no. It is better for Ginevra to learn the truth from my lips; for I am the only person that dares tell her the real state of the case. And I will do it without any disguise, for it may cure her. She shall listen to what I have to say. It will do her good. And I shall conceal nothing....”

I will not repeat the words that fell from his lips like a torrent of fire!... Besides, I can only recall their import. All I can remember is that they met the very evening of that fatal day—where and how I do not recollect. Flavio was talking to several other young men, and, without observing Mario's presence, insolently mentioned my name. My brother snatched the carnation from his button-hole. The next day the encounter took place....

I felt ready to drop with fright and horror. “Oh!” I said in a stifled voice, “can it be that my brother has killed Flavio Aldini with his own hand? O my God. my God! My punishment is greater than I deserve!”

“No, no,” he eagerly replied, “it was not I who....” He stopped, ... and then continued in a calmer tone, but somewhat bitterly:

“Compose yourself, dear sister; it was my blood alone that was shed in this encounter.”

“May God forgive me!” I shudderingly exclaimed with the fervent, sincere piety I always manifested with the simplicity of childhood. “And may he forgive you, too, Mario; for you likewise have committed a deed forbidden by God.”

A faint smile hovered on Mario's lips, but it immediately gave way to a graver expression; for notwithstanding his defects, he was by no means disposed to be impious.

“Forbidden by God! That is true, Ginevra; but it is, I would hope, a deed he sometimes excuses, especially when the person insulted gets the worst of the encounter.”

As he said this, he put his hand to his breast, as if suffering from pain. I was again struck with his extreme paleness, as well as other traces of illness in his altered appearance, and was penetrated with shame and remorse. A feeling more akin to affection than I had ever felt for him sprang up in my heart, and I said to him humbly:

“Mario, you have done right to be plain with me, and I thank you. What you have said will, I trust, effect my entire cure. At any rate, you have done your duty.”

He had never known me to yield to him before. I had always revolted against his ill-humor and harshness, whether just or not, and sometimes replied with an impertinence that justified his resentment. He was touched at seeing me in this new attitude, and, for the first time in his life, clasped me in his arms and kissed me with real affection. He then left the room, making a sign for Livia to follow him. She did so, but returned in a few minutes. Tears were in her eyes, and her lips were slightly tremulous—a sure indication in her of some sudden and profound emotion.

Mario had not told me every thing. His anger had died away, and he left it for kinder lips than his to communicate the rest.

V.

The affliction and repentance that so speedily followed the brief moment when I saw Flavio Aldini for the last time seemed to have effaced the transient impression produced at our only meeting, as a stream, suddenly swelled by a storm, washes away every trace left on the sand. I should have met him again with indifference, and perhaps even with aversion; for he would have been always associated with the first misfortune and first remorse of my life. Nevertheless, when Livia, after considerable hesitation, uttered the words, “Flavio Aldini is dead,” a cry almost of despair escaped from my lips; and the horrible thought at once occurred to me that Mario had deceived me—that he was the murderer, and that this flower, a thousand times abhorred, had cost the life of him who had obtained it through my vanity and thoughtlessness!...

The terrible lesson I had already received was not, however, to be carried to such an extent; but it was some minutes before I could be convinced of it. Livia herself had some difficulty in clearly relating the account she was charged [pg 339] with. At length I comprehended that Flavio, while pursuing a successful career of pleasure, was no less careful to improve every opportunity of repairing the inroads made on his fortune. Among these was the proposal to marry a wealthy heiress, which he acceded to without any scruple. But though he thus triumphed over a large number of suitors by means of his good looks and captivating manners, it was, in his eyes, only a lucky bargain and another light vow. He had been engaged only a few days, and the marriage was about to be publicly announced, when he met me at the ball. The sight of a new young face, and especially the naïve inexperience of a girl it would be easy to dazzle, inspired the wish to try his power once more. But he had been followed to the ball-room, and watched, by one of the unsuccessful suitors of the beautiful heiress. His encounter with Mario a few days after confirmed his rival's suspicions, and afforded him a pretext for gratifying his hatred and jealousy. Consequently, when Flavio, after leaving Mario wounded on the field, returned to the villa he occupied at a short distance from Messina, he found a new opponent to bring him to an account for his faithlessness to his betrothed, on the plea of a distant relationship that gave him the right to declare himself her champion. In this second duel, fortune was adverse to Flavio. He lived several weeks, however, and had only died that very morning from the effects of his wounds!... The news had just arrived.... And this was what Livia had been commissioned to tell me of....

If it is true that our souls are like precious stones that only reveal all their brilliancy after much cutting and polishing, it is certain that for both the first blow must be the most trying.... My soul, over which my mother had watched, and which she said was dearer to her than her own life, or even than mine, was now undergoing this painful process; or, rather, had undergone it. But during the last hour, it was no longer the knife, but fire, that had been applied to my bleeding heart!

Though I had no direct cause for self-reproach concerning this new catastrophe, as I at first feared, I did not feel myself wholly irresponsible. This was sufficient to deepen the solemn gravity of my reflections, in which I remained absorbed so long—motionless and silent—that poor Livia was seriously alarmed.

“Speak to me, Gina, I implore you. Oh! why, tell me why, carina, you have kept all this secret from your poor sister? Who could have dreamed you loved this unfortunate man; that you loved any one unbeknown to us all? Could we imagine such a thing possible? You know, dear child, I have never found fault with you, and I will not now. So tell me if it is true that you eluded the vigilance of your mother and Ottavia, in order to meet Flavio in the garden? Was it there you gave him the flower you wore in your hair? And is it true that more than once....”

Excessive surprise completely roused me from my stupor, and I eagerly interrupted her with a face as red as fire:

“Never! never! never!...” I exclaimed in a tone that would have convinced the most incredulous, for it had the indubitable accent of truth. “I did not love Flavio Aldini, and I never met him alone in my life.”

Livia, in her turn, looked at me with astonishment. “Did not love him? Never met him alone? Never gave him a bouquet or a single flower?”

“I will tell you the truth, Livia: once, and then I did not speak to him, I threw him from a distance the carnation I wore in my hair.”

“Once? From a distance? Ah! then tell me when and where you did it?”

I made no reply. A thousand thoughts flashed across my mind with the rapidity of lightning.... It was evident that, by some wonderful chance, no one knew exactly what had taken place. A vague story had been circulated, founded on Flavio's exaggerated boasts. My father, brother, and sister had accepted this version—so far from the truth—without understanding the real extent of that which had been alleged against me. I felt that they considered me guiltier than I really was. And yet I would not have undeceived them for anything in the world. They judged me more severely than I deserved, but of what consequence was it? Was I not sufficiently culpable to accept this injustice with humility? Was it not enough, without complaining of anything else, to be at last assured that my secret was safe with my mother in heaven? Ought I not rather to bear all their reproaches without a murmur? There was only one that would have overwhelmed me, and that I was spared. All others were easy to bear, and, moreover, were merited by what they were ignorant of, if not by what they supposed true.

Livia patiently waited for me to break my long silence.

“You know I am incapable of telling you an untruth,” I said to her at last.

“Yes, and therefore I always believe you.”

“Well, then, I implore you to believe me now, Livia, without asking me anything more. And, moreover,” I added in a supplicating tone, “do not repeat what I have just told you, and make no effort to justify me to any one.”

My good sister looked at me attentively for a moment, and then gently drew my head against her shoulder.

“Poor Gina!” she said. “It shall be as you wish. I believe everything you say, and love you too well to annoy you with any more questions.”

Livia knew me thoroughly; for, notwithstanding her apparent simplicity, she had an eye that could read one's soul. She saw the sincerity and repentance of mine, and read in my pale face and distressed look the extent of my sufferings, and her kind heart melted.... I was, indeed, very young to experience such a variety of emotions, and was still too weak to endure them. The habit of duelling, so unfortunately prevalent in Sicily, had, of course, accustomed me more than would have been the case anywhere else to occurrences similar to that I had just heard about. But to have my name connected with so fatal an affair; to feel that I was the cause of the blood shed in one of these encounters, and that the other had resulted in the tragical end of one who had flashed for an instant across my path, like one of those meteors that are the ominous forerunners of misfortune and death, ... was more than my young heart and feeble frame could endure. Livia perceived it.

“Come, carina,” she said, “lean against me. You need rest.”

I attempted to make my way to [pg 341] an old sofa, covered with red damask, at the other end of the vast and scantily-furnished room; but I had no sooner risen than my strength failed me, and I was obliged to lean against a table to keep myself from falling. Livia hastened to procure some cold water, with which she sprinkled my face. I soon recovered, but was still pale and agitated when Ottavia came in. She had left me quite well an hour before, and, finding me now in such a state, she exclaimed with mingled impatience and alarm as she advanced: “Good heavens! what has happened to her? She was so well this morning.”... And giving Livia a furtive, distrustful glance, she extended the index and little finger of her hand, closing all the others; turning around as she made this gesture, the meaning of which is only too well known in our country.[89] This was done so quickly that I hoped I was the only one to perceive it.

“How foolish!” I angrily exclaimed to Ottavia, seizing her hand and covering it with mine. “Are you going to treat me always as if I were an invalid or an old woman? Thanks to Livia”—and I emphasized these words—“I have entirely recovered.”

Ottavia, half angry, half sorry, was about to go away; but Livia made a sign for her to remain, and, pressing my hand as she embraced me once more, left the room without uttering a word.

VI.

The little incident I have just related will doubtless excite some astonishment, and be regarded as scarcely confirming what I have said before about Ottavia's piety and good sense. But whoever has lived in the southern part of Italy knows there are hundreds of people in that region whose education, and even religious instruction, are in no way deficient, and who, nevertheless, are not exempt from the singular superstition I have just referred to.

I leave it to the erudite to prove that Magna Græcia derived it from classical Greece, the mother country; that remote antiquity made use of the same absurd gesture to avert the effects of what it was still more absurd to believe; and that in those days, as well as now, people multiplied this very sign under the form of protective amulets—not only as jewels to be worn, but in the objects that surrounded them. I likewise leave to them the task of explaining why this evil has resisted the influence of time and the progress of civilization, as well as the spirit of Christianity. All that can be said, it seems to me, is that in those regions this superstition takes the place of all those that abound in the North of Europe, and from which Italy is exempt. For instance, we do not hear people there, as in Ireland, Scotland, and Sweden, talk of strange, weird apparitions, fairies, or malign spirits, under the name of bogies or banshees. They are not afraid, as in Russia, of meeting people clothed in black, of the number thirteen, and a thousand other absurd notions which Catholicism has condemned without being able to eradicate, and which Protestantism has [pg 342] been much more powerless against. Nor are the ruins, as in Germany, associated with wild legends or haunted by spirits. But, to make up for all this, the jettatura holds there its baleful sway. Though frequently ridiculed, it is feared more than any one is willing to admit; and there is no one, even among the most reasonable, who would suffer this dreaded epithet to be applied to himself, or any one he loved, without manifesting his displeasure. It would be impossible to account for the cause of this prejudicial notion in individual cases, or explain why this fearful term is sometimes applied to men of special merit, and women who are young, lovely, and amiable, as well as to those whom a pretext is wanted to avoid, or whose appearance has something repugnant. Sometimes it is sufficient that a person has accidentally witnessed some misfortune, and, if the same thing is known to occur again, the word escapes from the lips, flies from mouth to mouth, and the foolish prejudice is established. This had been the case with poor Livia. An accident once happened to me in my childhood when she was with me; shortly after, she was present when another occurred to one of our young friends; and a third time, she happened, in one of her charitable rounds, to be in the house of a poor man at the time of his death. This was spoken of at first as a mere jest; but it gradually became a source of mortification and humiliation to her, though none of us were ever allowed to make the least allusion to it in her presence. The repeated troubles of the past few weeks had disturbed the faithful Ottavia's equilibrium and good sense to such an unusual degree that when she found me, pale and agitated, leaning on my sister's shoulder, the first thought inspired by her terror caused her instantly to make this involuntary gesture.

I was so vexed at this occurrence that for a moment I forgot everything else. I felt angry with Ottavia, and threw myself on the old sofa without speaking, in a fit of mingled sorrow and displeasure.

I had always been fond of Livia, and now all the repressed and pent-up tenderness of my heart was poured out on her. She seemed to be the only person in the world that still loved me—the only one that stood between me and what appeared like a great void. Yes, my mother was right in what she said about the great necessity of my nature. As a flower dies, deprived of the sun, so without affection I should soon cease to exist. I placed no reliance on the durability of that which my brother had just manifested. As to my father, his love seemed extinct in comparison with that of former times. And now that I knew the reason of his coldness and severity, I had no hope of overcoming them; for I felt sure he would less readily excuse the truth, were it revealed to him, than the error which had caused such a change in his manner.

Therefore for any one to wound the feelings of Livia, my darling sister, my indulgent and faithful friend, was at this time like piercing my very heart. I remained with my head on the cushions of the old sofa, while Ottavia was bustling about the chamber, as if trying to divert my attention from what had taken place. At last she approached and tried to get hold of my hand. I withdrew it.

“Come, dear signorina,” she said, “forgive your poor old Ottavia. I did wrong.”

“Yes, very wrong, Ottavia,” I replied in a tone almost severe.

“I know it, and feel as if I were listening to the blessed spirit of Donna Bianca herself when I hear you and see you! You resemble her so much, signorina!...”

“Well, Ottavia, what would she say to you, if she had been present?”

“She would tell me that my fear of the jettatura is both foolish and wrong; and that is only what I know myself, what I believe and realize when I am on my knees before God!... Oh! at such times I really feel that his will alone is everywhere accomplished; I only love that holy will; I am afraid of nothing, because I am convinced that will must prevail. And yet, after all, ... when my dear signorina seems to be in danger, or I imagine some one is going to bring her ill-luck....”

“Ottavia!... Ottavia!”... I cried, suddenly interrupting her with an outburst that almost frightened her, “it is I, it is I, and not she, who bring ill-luck to all I approach....”

I burst into tears as I spoke. This sudden return upon myself effaced, with the mobility of youth, the impression previously received, and brought back, to my confusion and remorse, all the reality of the present.

Ottavia, like the rest, had been told of my supposed fault, and was ignorant of what I had really done; but she was by no means in a mood now to add any reproaches to those I had already received from my brother. On the contrary, she tried to soothe me, not by any direct reply, but by speaking of that which she could talk best about. I had always been more or less piously inclined from my earliest childhood. How could it be otherwise under the excellent influence that had hitherto been the life of my life?... This piety did not obliterate my faults, but it existed in spite of them, and was to exist through all the perils reserved for me in the future. But it was, if I may so speak, intermittent. Sometimes it grew dormant, if not absolutely extinct; at other times it was kindled to a lively and ardent degree. Therefore I frequently recited my catechism with indifference and ennui; but when it was explained by Ottavia in her peculiar way; when she spoke of the sacraments, or dwelt on the life and sufferings of our Saviour, and more especially on the life to come, I was filled with delight. The loveliness of the natural world around me seemed to assume an additional charm; and when I considered that this was only a faint image of a far more beautiful realm, I longed at once to exchange this life for the other....

It was by such means the good Ottavia now gently endeavored to divert me, by speaking of God, of heaven, and various other sacred topics. By degrees she came back to more indifferent subjects, and finally to Livia, promising to make her forget the mortification she had experienced, and almost persuading me she had not perceived what had taken place.

I allowed her to talk on in this way without interruption until her somewhat monotonous tone produced a drowsiness that was beneficial to my over-excited nerves. As soon as she saw my eyes grow heavy, she placed one of the large sofa-cushions under my head, closed the window-shutters to exclude the dazzling light, and then, after remaining beside me till she was persuaded [pg 344] I was fast asleep, softly left the chamber.

I was not, however, asleep. But my attitude and the profound silence and solitude of the room were very soothing, and I remained a long time absorbed in a thousand complex thoughts. Long years have passed away since that day, and other and more dangerous temptations have assailed me, but I have never forgotten the reflections of that hour. My vanity had been for ever shattered like the congealed surface of some deep lake by some sudden blow. It had not really been a part of my inner nature, but rather on the surface, and therefore not the most dangerous trait of my character. During the remainder of my life, I can only recall a single hour—and only one! ... when it again blinded me.... But that hour was long after the one of which I have been speaking. At this time I could say with assurance that Mario's wish was fulfilled—that I was effectually and radically cured of my vanity. Associated with so many poignant recollections, it had become horrible in my eyes.

My health was somewhat affected by the agitation I had undergone, and I took advantage of this to remain several days in my room, only leaving it to take the air on the terrace. I only saw my father for a moment, morning and night. The remainder of the day I passed with Livia. Whether she had forgotten what had distressed me so much, or it was owing to her self-control, or she really had not noticed it, it was impossible to tell from her manner, and I finally persuaded myself it was as I hoped.

Livia, in spite of her amiable disposition, had great firmness of character. She never allowed herself to be induced to tell anything she wished to conceal, or to do what was forbidden by others or by her own judgment. But what especially characterized her was her self-forgetfulness. This did not strike me at that time. When one is only fifteen years of age, one receives impressions without defining them: one is repelled or attracted by certain natures without being able to analyze them. But in looking back, not only over the events of my past life, but what transpired in the inner folds of my conscience, I clearly see the difference between my sister's nature and mine. From her very childhood she had lived a life of self-forgetfulness (sublime and simple way to heights but little known!), regardless of her own tastes and inclinations, and even of her own sufferings. Whereas, I was constantly endeavoring to fathom the workings of my heart and soul and mind, and to find food for them, as one tries to appease one's hunger and thirst when importunate. Not but that I was capable of forgetting myself, and, so to speak, of being absorbed in the heart of another, as I had been in that of my mother, but solely on the condition of being to that other, in return, the object of an infinite predilection; ... for this word of such vast import does not seem to express more than my heart craved. But in spite of this difference, or rather on the very account of it, Livia and I were always at ease with each other, and it was not without regret I was at last obliged to resume my usual life. I regretted this the more because it had been regulated by my father in a way that indicated only too plainly how much he distrusted me. Nevertheless, I submitted with humility and docility to this unaccustomed surveillance, the cause of which was so evident.

I was only released from it during the early hours of the day, which I spent in my chamber with Livia. I was not allowed to go into the garden, except under Ottavia's escort; and I was not permitted to leave the house, unless accompanied by my father or Mario. All the rest of my time I passed in my father's cabinet, where he had a table placed for me near his own. There, for hours together, I read, wrote, or worked, varying my occupations according to my own tastes, but without any other liberty. To have passed my days in this way beside my father would have been delightful once; but now, though he was often kind and affectionate, there was a certain gravity in his affection that made me feel I was the object of unjust suspicion, and tortured me beyond expression. But I submitted to this torture without a murmur, acknowledging, as I did so, that it was only a merited chastisement.

This cabinet was like a vast hall in form, and, like all the other rooms of that old palace, grand in its proportions, but only furnished with what was absolutely essential. One side of the apartment was entirely lined with shelves filled with books and papers, and at each extremity stood a row of arm-chairs. In the middle of the room, opposite two large windows, was my father's writing-table, near which was mine. Between the windows hung a large painting, which was the only ornament in the room; but, to compensate for this, the garden could be seen, and further off, beyond the verdure of the orange-trees, stretched the blue outline of the sea.

My father received many of his friends and clients in the morning, but seldom admitted any of them into the room we occupied. A servant half opened the door to announce the visitors' names, and my father went into the adjoining room to receive them. It was only on special occasions he gave orders for any one to be admitted where we were.

During the long hours I was thus left alone, I sometimes busily employed my time, but more frequently remained with my arms folded, plunged in a profound reverie. At such times I always avoided looking at the large painting that hung on the opposite panel between the two windows. This was a fine copy of Herodias' Daughter, by Guido, the original of which I afterwards saw in the Palazzo Corsini, at Rome. The sweet, charming face of the girl who is holding with a smile the bleeding head of S. John had a kind of fascination for me. It seemed like the personification of vanity in a new form, giddy and thoughtless in its course and fatal in its results, and often inspired me with many silent, gloomy reflections.... I preferred looking at the foliage of the orange-trees in the garden below, or gazing into the blue, illimitable heavens above. I often amused myself, likewise, before a cage, prettily painted and gilded, that hung in one of the windows, and contained a bird whose company was a great diversion in the life of disguised punishment I was condemned to. This bird, whose melody surpassed that of the nightingale in sweetness and power, was one of those called at Sorrento, where they are chiefly found, the passero solitario. I was so fond of its sweet music that my father had allowed me to hang the cage here, and more than once in the day I climbed up on a bench in the embrasure of the window to [pg 346] see there was no lack of the singularly copious and solid food which this bird of angelic notes daily requires.

One day, while I was thus perched at a considerable height from the floor, the door opened much wider than usual, and the old servant that announced the visitors said with a certain emphasis: “His Excellency the Duca di Valenzano.”

My first thought was to descend from the post I occupied; but before I had time to do so, the visitor entered the room, and stood regarding me with an air of surprise. My father rose to meet so unexpected a client; but the latter held out his hand to aid me in my descent, and followed me with his eyes, without speaking, as I hastily regained my usual seat, blushing with confusion. My father conducted him to the other end of the room, where stood the row of arm-chairs, and both took seats. During the long conversation that followed, I could only hear the tones of their voices as they rose and fell. Sometimes my father's predominated, and at other times the deep, sonorous voice of his visitor. I saw it was a question of business, for my father rose several times to search for different papers among the books arranged on the shelves of the library. Finally the conversation ended, and the new client proceeded towards the door. But when he arrived opposite the cage where my bird was singing, he said: “Really, one's ears are charmed here no less than one's eyes. It seems more like a palace of fairies than a rendezvous for all the contentions of Sicily....”

He was then standing directly before me.

“Don Fabrizio,” continued he, “is not this your daughter, Donna Ginevra, of whom I have so often heard? Do me the favor of presenting me to her.”

My father's face assumed a severe, dissatisfied expression, and mine was covered with a livelier blush than before. “Heard of me so often?” Alas! he had probably heard me spoken unfavorably of! Perhaps this was the very thought that clouded my father's brow. Nevertheless, after a moment's hesitation, he said: “Rise, Ginevra, and pay your respects to the Duca di Valenzano.”

I rose, but without uttering a word; for I was disconcerted by the fixed, scrutinizing eye that seemed trying to read my face. I lowered my eyes, without being able to distinguish the features of this new acquaintance. I only remarked that he was tall, and had a noble air, in spite of his peculiar garb, that made him look more like a travelling artist than a person of high rank.

To Be Continued.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. III.

“Vedi Napoli, e poi mori.”[90]

We left Rome in a storm of thunder and lightning. The rain poured in large, cold drops, pattering against the windows of the railway carriage, and adding considerably to the feelings of gloom and apprehension with which we thought of Rome—as Rome is now. When should we visit the Eternal City again? And would the veil of sadness which now falls on all that is dear and sacred to the Catholic be raised once more in our time? Mary was very silent for some hours of our long journey; and while I, with my habitual curiosity, was peering through the rain-washed window to discover the beauties of the glorious country through which we were rushing, she lay back with closed eyes, absorbed in thought; while Frank, with a fixed frown on his face, was reading and rustling, and finally crumpling up, in paroxysms of anger, the numerous Italian papers that he had bought by handfuls at the station. Presently Mary opened her eyes once more, and condescended to recognize the great fact that we were travelling further and further to the glorious South. I do not think I felt less intensely than my sister the sorrow that attends all reflection on the present condition of the great centre of Christendom and the position of the Father of the faithful. But my grief is apt to take another form from that of Mary's or Frank's. Mary grows silent and outwardly calm. Frank becomes gloomy. I am more irritable; and irritability leads to activity. My mind was working with an incessant rapidity, and the impulse to catch sight once more of every shred that could carry me back to happier times, and recall once more the memories of the past, kept me straining my eyes to get a glimpse of Albano, where we had spent a long, happy summer when the Holy Father was at Castel Gandolfo. Should I catch sight of Lavinia, Æneas' own city, the object of so many excursions in those happy days? Should I see those hills covered with chestnuts, bare of leaves now, beneath whose shade I had so often rested? Even Velletri, though not in itself a specially interesting place, had the charm of association. I remembered how I had gone to spend a long day there, and had wandered to the gates of some private house with a large garden. I had stood looking through the iron bars on a little paradise, but, as usual in Italy, a paradise in disorder. Stone vases stood on a balustrade, filled with bright flowers, but also with weeds. The fertile valley lay below, and beyond the blue and purple mountains rose in tiers one above another, with soft, violet shadows [pg 348] and dim blue mists; and here and there a peak of rugged rock, on which the sun struck bright and keen. A long avenue of shady plane-trees was to my right. A solitary peasant drove his mule, with balanced panniers and pointed ears like two notes of admiration against the sky, far as my eye could reach down the green distance. I longed to wander on; to follow the flickering lights along that silent road, and know that it would lead me out to the Pontine Marshes, with the rugged Abruzzi beyond. Here, too, rests the body of Hyacinthe Mariscotti, a Franciscan nun, who died in 1640, and whose life, less known out of Italy than it deserves, is one of the most marvellous in its union of great graces and great sufferings.

The rain pelted hard; the lightning made me, from time to time, shrink back suddenly; but still I strained my eyes to catch sight of the shifting scene, and allowed memories to reawaken and imagination to throw its glamour over the past and the future.

Many of the stations along this road are at some distance from the towns whose name they bear; and this, of course, diminishes a little the interest of the journey. For instance, Aquino, the birthplace of the great father of the church, S. Thomas Aquinas, is about a mile off. Near here we were, for a time, to take leave of Frank. He had made up his mind to visit the cradle of the great saint before proceeding to Monte Casino, where he had made arrangements to spend at least a week. Our readers are no doubt well aware that Monte Casino is no longer what it was. Its glories have been shorn by the present government, as the rays of the sun are shorn by the twilight. There are comparatively very few monks of the order of S. Benedict still allowed to reside there. Amongst them, however, Frank had formed a real friendship; and for a month previous, at least, Mary and I had heard him descanting upon all the charms that he was to find in that wonderful retreat of learning and sanctity. Partly to tease him, and partly to be revenged for the fact that I must be for ever excluded, I generally replied to his enthusiasm by making a wry face and uttering the words, “Kid, rancid oil, and garlic.” Then he would toss back that tiresome stray lock which is always trying to shade his beautiful violet eyes, and reply, with a smile, “Oh! I shall not mind.” The train stops a very short time at San Germano, the station for the Monastery of Monte Casino, and we had a hurried leave-taking. I was endeavoring to collect a few of his newspapers, which I thought he had not half read, and put them into his hand as he left the carriage. “No, no, dear Jane. Do you think I would pollute those sacred walls by carrying there all that blasphemous stuff.” And he leapt out just as we began to move on.

“O Mary!” I exclaimed, “how dreadful it would be, if Frank were to become a Benedictine monk.”

“What else do you want him to do?”

“Why, live at home, of course, as an English country gentleman should do, marry, and bring up a son to rule after him.”

“What a thorough conservative you are, Jane!” said Mary with a smile.

“I am not so sure of that. I have a dash of the liberal in me at times. But I do love the dirty acres; and I like to see them [pg 349] going down from father to son without a break.”

“You are right there. It is that permanence which is the back-bone of England. I do not believe in the lasting stability of any country where there is a perpetual and ever-recurring division of property. What a man has should always survive what a man is, in a sufficiently substantial form to make the cradle of a future destiny. And where no one is sure of inheriting a large fortune with the large leisure that it secures, it tends to make all men equally mercenary. There should always be a class apart who have no need to fret about making money, but can afford to spend it.”

“But what if they do not spend it well?”

“That is an answer which in one shape or another you may make to the laying down of any principle. What if it be abused? It does not prove the falsity of the principle, but only once more calls to mind the truism that everything is open to abuse.”

“I suppose you think there are so many objects on which wealth may be advantageously expended that it is well to have an hereditary body whose business it is to do so.”

“Yes; and I would certainly include the cultivation of hot-house grapes, and the elysium of fat porkers who are washed and combed twice a week. It is every man's business to produce the best he can of whatever he has in hand, including pineapples and pigs.”

“Well done, Mary. You are a worse conservative than I am. But do you really think that modern civilization, as it is called, has its uses?”

“By modern civilization, Jane, I conclude you really mean material improvements. Civilization is a term which is so misused that it has become hardly safe to use it at all. It ought to mean something much higher than increased railway facilities, more looking-glasses and buhl, hundreds of daily newspapers, and a French cook.”

“Oh! of course. Civilization ought to mean the intellectual and spiritual development of mankind from out of the rough block of his animal nature and his uneducated mind. If you add to this the refinement which self-respect and a perpetual inner consciousness of a Being greater and higher than ourselves, keeping all the man's actions in harmony with himself and with a higher law, you have a really civilized man as distinct from a savage.”

“That is not a bad description of what civilization ought to be. But that is very different from the idea most people have in their minds when they use the term.”

“In point of fact, Mary, I mean material progress. How far is it useful?”

“How people would stare at you, Jane, for that query!—people who think there is nothing more glorious than to have invented a new machine or a fresh adjunct to luxury.”

“Yes, those are just the people who would not the least know what I meant by my implied doubts about the value of material progress. But you know what I mean and why I question its nature and deprecate its increase.”

“It is a difficult question to solve. But I have long since come to the conclusion that there is never any very great and generally diffused advance made by mankind in any one direction without its having [pg 350] some definite purpose in the Eternal Mind for the ultimate good of his creation. The progress of science is only second in importance to the progress of religion; and after these two comes the progress of the useful arts, which are the offspring of science, and often seem only to pander to luxury, but are really subsidiary aids in that march, in the accomplishment of which man is to fulfil his destiny of possessing the earth and filling it. Mankind is in no way benefited by the discovery, for instance, of a new perfume, whereby some silly woman may add to the already exaggerated expenses of her toilet; but the process by which that perfume has been produced is, in itself, of the utmost value, and exhibits mechanical invention and scientific principles that are of the last importance to mankind. The perfume is an accident—a little of the golden dust scattered by the wheels of material progress.”

“Just so; and dust, albeit golden, is not a good atmosphere to breathe in.”

“Decidedly not.”

“Then do you think, dear Mary, that material progress, or what we generally call improvements, conduces, on the whole, to human happiness?”

“Ah! there lies the really difficult question, and one which I have again and again striven to answer satisfactorily to myself. Happiness is a term generally used to cover more than it has any right to do. There is only one real happiness, and that is what man finds in himself, in union with his God. That happiness is positive, and there is no other positive. We begin it here, but with great drawbacks and frequent interruptions. We complete it in the light of glory. But outside that, hanging on to the skirts and fringes of real happiness, there are contentment, pleasure, ease, and last, but not least, comfort. No one can impart happiness, pure and simple, to another. The nearest approach to doing so is in a reciprocal affection. But God alone can satisfy the soul of man. What we can confer on others and on ourselves are various degrees of those lesser goods which I have enumerated. Now, all these enter into the general plan of God's dealings with his creatures. The animal world is susceptible of them in its degree, and we ourselves in a far higher degree. As they enter into the general scheme, I am at liberty to conclude, not only from my own sensations, which might delude me, but from that very fact, that they are of very great importance, and that everything which augments the sum of them is a blessing. They are the ore out of which we coin our charities to others. They are therefore essentially God's gifts, to be given by us again.”

“I know what you mean, Mary. I shall never forget the pleasure I had in taking one of your air-cushions to that poor woman at T——, who was dying of cancer, and to whom the slightest pressure of even an ordinary pillow was so painful. Now, air-cushions are a comparatively modern invention. Dear mother used to say no one ever heard of mackintoshes and gutta-percha in her day.”

“No, Jane, nor yet of lucifer matches. It was terrible work to have to nurse the sick through the night, with a flint and steel and tinder as the only way of striking a light. I think I see now my old nurse, with her large frilled night-cap, hammering away for what [pg 351] seemed to us children a good three minutes, because the rush-light had gone out, and baby was crying. I can remember I had for that flint and steel very much the same feelings an Indian has for his fetish. I used to wonder how the flint hid the fire in its cold bosom, and why sometimes it seemed to require so many more persuasive knocks than at others before it gave out its sparks. But for the matter of that, as a child I had secretly embraced the earliest form of religion, the animism of the lower races of savages—and I lent a soul to all inanimate, and even all inorganic, matter. I believe, if we could but find it out, all children do so more or less. The external world is so wonderful to them that they vaguely imagine a personality and a consciousness to exist in everything. There is not a little girl who does not, in her heart, believe that her doll is something more than wax and sawdust; and I would not give much for her, if she did not. The exuberance of faith leads to an exuberance of tenderness; and the girl who believes in her doll has the germ of a good mother in her.”

“You seemed just now to attach a great importance to comfort, Mary. I am surprised at that.”

“It arises, in a measure, from my own personal experience. Besides which, comfort may mean almost anything; for it is generally whatever we are used to. I remember so well, years ago, when the sorrows of my life first threatened to overpower me, how thankfully I felt the warm, soft arms of mere outward well-being so closely round me. To me they were no more than comforts, because all my life I had been used to them. To others they would have seemed luxuries. When I used to go up to London alone to my father's house, and find all ready to my hand—well-appointed servants, large, warm rooms, and a good table, with nothing of meanness, or sparing, or pinching in the unextravagant but perfectly organized home that was open to me—I used often to lean back in my easy-chair, and say to myself, ‘I am very unhappy; but, thank God, I am not uncomfortable!’ Later on, you know, it was not so. I was a Catholic, and doors that had been open to me before were closed for ever. Then came the time for discomfort. If I wanted to go to London, I had to go to a lodging. The furniture was shabby and dirty; the fires smoked; the food was badly cooked. I drove about in hired vehicles, perished with cold, and shaken to death. I knew I was in no way degraded by it all; but it was new and painfully strange to me, and I felt degraded by an amount of discomforts which in my youth I had never approached. It did not, in itself, make me unhappy, but it added a thousandfold to the suffering from real causes for unhappiness. I used to say they were the splinters of my cross, though not my cross itself. Ever since then, I never see a person in sorrow without being anxious to make them at least comfortable. There is nothing, you see, approaching to asceticism in my view, dear Jane; but, at any rate, one is not bound to be ascetic for others.”

Mary and I were sitting side by side in the railway-carriage, I having come from my seat opposite in order the better to hear. But now I returned to my old place, just as we paused at the station of Caserta, and saw the largest palace in Europe, now empty and almost deserted, not far off.

The great object in our visit to Naples was to be as near as possible to our friends, the Vernons. We were to go first to a hotel, and then look out for a villa at Posilippo, near the one occupied by themselves, which was called Casinelli, from the family of that name to whom it belonged. We had written to Ida Vernon to beg she would choose our hotel and our rooms. She had lodged us at a very comfortable pension on the Chiaja, and wrote us word we must, on reaching the station at 10 o'clock at night, look out for their servant, Monica; and that she would wear a red handkerchief pinned across, gold earrings, and a blue skirt. We were not to expect the universal black hair and eyes of the Italian woman, as hers were soft brown. The station is very large and very badly lighted. But as soon as I got out, I ran to the grating—a high iron railing, behind which stood the crowd of people, friends, servants, porters, and mere lookers-on, all pushing and squeezing to catch sight of those they expected by the train. I soon made out the blue skirt, and red kerchief, and the amiable, smiling face of Monica. She welcomed us exactly as if we had been old friends, and that it was a personal pleasure to herself that we had arrived. She had brought a carriage for us the size of a small house, but which refused (through the coachman) to take luggage. That was to follow in another kind of conveyance immediately after us. Every sort of injunction was given as to its destination, and, persuaded all was right, we rumbled over the large flags of the streets of Naples to the far end of the Chiaja, where we were to lodge. There were flowers in our room and a note from Ida; and the next morning we were to meet, after a separation of seven years. Meanwhile, our impedimenta was slowly grinding its way past our door, up the steep hill of Strada Nuova, on to Posilippo, where our friends reside—a good twenty minutes from our abode—down the hill, through the vineyard, and up to the door of the Villa Casinelli, where, arriving about midnight, they thundered and thumped till the tired Monica had donned once more the blue skirt, while Lucia was screaming that there were robbers. Ida came forth in a warm wrapper; Elizabeth's tall figure was draped in white; Helen peeped out of the half-open door; and the good Padre Cataldo, their chaplain, in beretta and soutane, had to emerge from his little sanctum, at the furthest end of the long, narrow house, before peace could be restored, and our mountain of huge black trunks, portmanteaus, and leather bags could be induced to retrace their needless steps, climb again that zig-zag road up the steep tufa rock, and reach us, worn out with waiting and feverish with impatience for night-gear, at about one o'clock in the morning.

Brilliant sunshine, streaming into the room the next day, woke us up to the sense of the joyous, bounding life of these delicious climes. O noisy Naples! what clamorous cries, what vibrating shouts, what shrill feminine voices, fill thy glaring streets through the livelong day and far into the unrestful night. The horses neigh as they do not neigh in any more tranquil climes. The usually silent ass is here a garrulous animal. The dogs bark and snarl in a dialect special to Naples. The women scream like cockatoos, and never address each other in lower tones than as if shouting [pg 353] a word of command on board a man-of-war in a gale of wind. Their habits are not conversational, but screamational; and the most cordial civility is communicated like a threat, while an affectionate compliment is conveyed in sounds sufficient to startle the most supine into lively attention. Young girls hiss and squeal; infants bellow and roar. It is noise, noise, all day long; and over all a remorseless sunshine on white, glaring pavements of flag-stones a quarter of a yard square and more, like the pavement of the ancient Romans, such as we still see it in the Via Sacra near the Colosseum, and which resounds to the metallic tread of donkey, mule, and horse, or to the softer, shuffling pit-a-pat of the herds of bearded goats that traverse the city at early morn and eventide.

Mary's bed-room opened into a large loggia full of flowers—geraniums, petunias, and carnations in full blossom, though it was only the month of March; but so had they blossomed more or less all through the winter. A few orange-trees in tubs were there with golden fruit and star-like flowers. Then the blue sky and the bluer bay! Yes, it was the plenitude of life that one only knows in the South, with the delicious sense of the pleasure of mere existence, which tempts one to adopt the dolce far niente, and makes living and breathing seem a full accomplishment of the day's duties.

Ida and Elizabeth Vernon came early to carry us off to Posilippo; first to call on Mrs. Vernon at Villa Casinelli, and then to decide on a lodging as near to them as possible. We found them living in a house whose foundations are washed by the sea, and commanding a view of wonderful beauty. The descent from the main road was too steep for any carriage, winding in and out through vines and fig-trees, oranges and Japanese medlars, ending in a closely-knit avenue of the white mulberry, which in the summer makes a dense shade.

Our friends wanted us to take the villa next to theirs, if only the proprietor, a poor and proud marchese, would let it to us. We went over to look at it, but came away in disgust. There was scarcely any furniture, and none that would have satisfied even the most modest requirements. I do not remember seeing any beds, although it is certain the family come there from time to time for a few days. I asked Ida where they slept, and she pointed to some roomy sofas and wide divans, on which had been flung the ashes and the ends of cigars, as the probable resting-place of the proprietors. We could only shake our heads in horrified astonishment, and think what a lovely place might be made of this quaint old house. It stands partly on the rock and partly on arcades, through which the sea comes rushing when the waves are high, but where, when it is calm, you may sit on silver sands or on the stone steps that lead down from the house and the upper terraced gardens. We had been so fascinated by the appearance of this residence, which looks outside like the fragment of an old feudal castle, and inside is bright with sunshine and the glorious view it commands, that we had requested Padre Cataldo to write and ask the terms before we had gone over it. On our return from doing so, shocked at the dirt and disorder we had witnessed, we were amused to find a magniloquent reply to the effect [pg 354] that the titled owner would “condescend” to let us his dwelling for (and here he named an exorbitant price), solely out of an amiable desire to make himself agreeable; and that he would call the following morning to receive the ten weeks' rent in advance! We finally decided on the villa next but one to that of our friends—the Villa R—— R——. We did not require more than one floor of the house. The rest was occupied by the family, and had a second entrance. We came into our part straight from the Strada Nuova, down a few steps, and in at a large folding door flanked by a Stone seat and two vases with huge aloes. We had a lovely view of the bay in front, a little garden on a sloping bank on one side, full of oranges and lemons, now in full fruit and flower; a loggia—that great desideratum of an Italian house—and a view of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. On our return to our apartments, we were met by the woman who attends upon us, telling us that Ann was in her room with a bad headache. Little did we guess what had befallen her! We went in to see what was the matter, and found her flung upon the bed, with her clothes on, in a profound stupor. In vain we called her and shook her; we could not rouse her. The landlady presently came and told us that an hour previous poor Ann had been brought home by a gendarme in a carriage; that she was unable to walk up-stairs without assistance, and seemed completely dazed when spoken to. The gendarme said he had noticed a young person sitting on a bench in the Villa Reale, the long, narrow garden which runs for a mile along the Chiaja by the sea-shore; that she looked extremely ill; and that, noticing she had valuables about her (alluding to her watch and chain), he had asked her address, put her into a carriage, and brought her home. It was a mercy he had done so. The Neapolitan police are not always so honest. But our dismay was increased when at length, having awakened her, she did not know any of us. She kept entreating Mary, who held her in her arms, to take her back to her own Mrs. Gordon, her good Mrs. Gordon. In vain Mary replied, “But I am Mrs. Gordon, Ann. Look at me; don't you know me?”

“No, no; you look something like her, but you have not her voice. Oh! where is she. Where is Miss Jane, and where is Lulu?”

Fortunately, Lulu, Mary's dog, was in her room, and the probability was that, though she failed to know us, she would recognize Mary's Lulu from any other Lulu. I flew to fetch the little animal, and threw it into her arms, to poor Lulu's great astonishment. It succeeded perfectly. She knew the dog, and thus recovered her memory of the faces around her, and her conviction that she was in her own room. Evidently she had a vague horror that she might have been taken to the wrong house, and that she had awakened among strangers. When she had entirely recovered herself, we found that no trace of what had happened to her remained on her memory from the moment that she entered the Villa Reale; yet she was found more than half way down it! She must have wandered on partially insensible; and it is a blessing that, when the gendarme found her, she had enough consciousness left to give the right address. She had already been out in the morning, and a second walk in the hot sun had been too much for her. It was a sun-stroke; and strangers [pg 355] are more subject to such accidents than persons who have become habituated to the climate. It was, however, long before Ann really shook off the effects of gratifying her over-curiosity to visit the beauties of Naples on first arriving.

In a very short time, we were comfortably settled at Villa R—— R——. The Vernons had arranged everything for us with a forethought for which we could not be too grateful. They lent us the services of Monica as cook, assuring us that, if we took a Neapolitan, we should be cheated and tormented out of our lives. Monica was a Piedmontese, and as good and simple-hearted a girl as any one could wish to find. Her economical scruples were positively amusing. We could hardly induce her to buy the particular articles we desired for our dinner, because, in her estimation, they were at too high a price in the market; and she would beg and entreat of us to wait patiently a little longer until they should have gone down. If it had been her own money she was spending, she would not have been so economical; for, as we found out later, she was always ready to lend to those less well off than herself, and would give away more than she could afford. The name of the young lad whom the Vernons engaged to act as servant was Paolino, a boy of eighteen, with glorious, large brown eyes and bright complexion. It was some time before we taught him manners, as he had never been in a gentleman's family before. His father was a vignaiuolo of the name of Camerota. He had several sons and daughters, some of them married. He rented the vineyards of the marchese whose dilapidated house we had declined to hire, and each of his children married from their home with a good substantial dower and a large trousseau. The eldest girl had not long been a bride when we arrived; and, after making the acquaintance of the other members of the family, we one day called upon her. Their dwelling was built against the tufa rock which skirts the Strada Nuova. She had three rooms, nicely furnished, with marble tops to the chest of drawers and the table, such as we in England should only expect to find in the houses of the rich, but which here are common enough. The bedstead was of walnut, and the sheets like the driven snow for whiteness. Ida, who had known the girl for years, told us that her trousseau contained a dozen of every necessary article of dress and house-linen, even to a dozen pairs of stays!—enough to last a life-time. There hung a crucifix at the head of the bed, and a few colored engravings ornamented the walls of the sitting-room, in which also there stood a tiny altar with a statue of the Mater Dolorosa and a few flowers.

The lower classes here have what we should call strange notions with respect to the sacrament of marriage. It is treated as a deed of darkness. The bride is conveyed late in the evening, or by cock-crowing, to church, by her mother and a few respectable matrons. No young girl, not even a sister, is allowed to be present, and would endanger her reputation were she to appear on such an occasion. A few days later, the bride once more puts on her wreath, and her veil, and her wedding-dress. All the family and friends of both sexes are gathered together, and the women and men, in separate carriages, drive fast and furious along the Chiaja up the Strada Nuova, [pg 356] past Posilippo, by the hour, and finally pause at the Taberna del Capo di Posilippo, or some other house of entertainment, and have a merry feast. We held this said Taberna somewhat in horror. On Sundays—the day on which everybody seems to think his honor and reputation are engaged in galloping up hill and down dale at a break-neck pace for the whole afternoon—this was the chief place of meeting; and in the lovely starlight evenings, the returning guests would come back with a sadly rollicking air, hat on one side, a long cigar in the mouth, and a leg hanging over the side of the frail vehicle, while the spirited little Sardinian horse, all blood and sinew, would fly along, with jingling bells and bright brass harness, as if his hoofs hardly struck the earth. The drivers of these cittadine, as the little hired open carriages are called, take great pride in their harness. The horse-collar more resembles a yoke; and where it meets over the horse's neck, there is often a little brass image of the angel guardian—a very necessary angel, indeed, considering the pace they go, and whose guardianship must be severely put to the test by the mad risks of the half-inebriated coachmen. It is very rare to see a Neapolitan really drunk. The wine they take produces a light, joyous, but brief intoxication, which makes dare-devils of them for the time, but soon loses its effects, and is rarely stupefying. It is the divine inflatus of the Bacchus of old, and not the coarse, heavy incapacity of the snoring Silenus. Nevertheless, though I have spoken so indulgently of the Taberna del Capo di Posilippo, it formed a not unfrequent subject of grave rebuke and expostulation in the discourses of our good Padre Cataldo to his little group of listeners in the chapel in the rock belonging to Villa Casinelli. And probably he knew more of its evil influences than we did. I remember, one Sunday afternoon, being particularly struck by a carriage full of merry-makers, drawn by the most miserably thin gray mare my eyes had ever beheld. She was nothing but a bag of bones, and must have reached the utmost age that horse ever attains. I was horrified to see so old and pitiable an object driven so hard and fast, and could only console myself by thinking the gallop I then witnessed must surely be the last. But it was not so; far from it. Day after day, but on Sundays especially, my Rosinante might be seen flinging her wild hoofs into space, amid a cloud of dust, and generally in competition with a beautiful, wicked-looking black horse, sleek and well cared for, in dazzling harness, with red ribbons in his mane—a perfect little devil, as he took the bit between his teeth, and seemed to enjoy the eagerness of his driver, albeit the lash fell often on his sleek and steaming flanks. I delighted in that little black horse. But to the last Sunday of our abode at Posilippo poor Rosinante held her ground. And I can see her now, awful to behold, neither fatter nor thinner—that she could hardly be—than the first day, devouring the ground beneath her, and flinging out her skeleton leg straight from the shoulder, so that I could hardly see she touched the ground.

The chief amusement on Sunday afternoons of our own humbler friends and neighbors, the vignaiuoli,[91] was a game of bowls by the side [pg 357] of the road, and in front of the wide-gaping wooden doors of the strange dwellings cut in the rock where the inhabitants of Posilippo reside. Many of these are restaurants and taverns on a small and humble scale; and Padre Cataldo had been making vigorous efforts, not to discourage the game of bowls, but to induce the men to play in an open space near the Villa Casinelli, and consequently at some distance from the taverns. Like all Italians, and chief amongst them all, the Neapolitans are great gamblers. The tavern-keepers encourage this, because it promotes their trade; and the games being carried on in front of their caverns (for such they really are) leads to incessant “treating.” In this way, what between entertaining his friends and losing his money at play, it often happens that the ill-advised vignaiuolo returns to his home with his pockets empty; and the next day the wife would come in tears to tell her sorrows to the good father. Even our Paolino was never contented without an hour or two at bowls on Sunday afternoon. And we did not like to refuse him, for we were obliged to take him somewhat on his own terms; and these involved a very small sense of servitude, and a very large one that he had put us under something of an obligation by coming to us at all. Had he been a year or two older, his parents would not have allowed him to enter service, thinking it a degradation. But as he was very young, and rather restless and wanting change, it was decided that he might be allowed to work off a little of the exuberance of boyhood in our service. Even this could not have been allowed had we not been friends of the Vernons; but as they are adored by all the vignaiuoli and the inhabitants of Posilippo generally, their request could not be overlooked. Accordingly, Paolino, blushing and grinning, was admitted to form one of our household. His father told us exactly what his son's labor was worth to himself, and that we were to hand over to him. It was all to go to the making-up of Paolino's marriage-portion. We were then to pay the lad a little over for himself, as pocket money. And this was to be done with discretion; not to prove a temptation to lavish expenditure. This is the way in which the marriage-portions of both boys and girls are made up. They work for their own parents, and the latter put by the wages for them. When old enough, they are at liberty to undertake other and more profitable work. And from time to time there comes a windfall—a little work to be done in addition; or a specially good harvest, when the parents add something of the surplus to the portion of the girl or boy then marriageable. There was a deep, dark-eyed maiden, of the ripe age of fifteen, with wayward black locks and a furtive glance in her liquid eyes like a startled fawn, about whose conduct there was a slight demur. Venturella (for such was her name, and it struck me at the time as of evil omen) was at heart as innocent as a child of five. But there was something in her shy yet daring nature which caused a certain uneasiness as to the fate of the timid, impulsive girl in this evil world. Venturella was fond of leaning over the low parapet which divided her father's vineyard from the highroad; and when the brief Italian twilight had sunk in the shades of night, and the brilliant stars, that seem so near in those southern lands, had spangled [pg 358] the dense blue heavens with their myriad fires, Venturella would pretend she did not hear her mother's voice calling her to come home. With arms crossed, she would lean on the wall, just breast high, and her star-like eyes would seek their sister-stars above with a vague, dream-like wonder. What the stars—and perhaps even more the moon—said to Venturella we shall never know; but one of them must have carried a message to a certain youthful Franceschino, whose hyacinthine locks clustered low over a brow of ivory, beneath which lay two eyes like the evening sky Venturella was so fond of; and whose teeth gleamed in the soft light like the white sea-foam. Nobody knew; and as the birds had all long ago gone to bed, none of them were there to whisper tales.

Franceschino was the son of a vignaiuolo who lived on the Vomero, the heights above Posilippo; and the little stolen interviews took place as he came back from the city, whither he had been sent on his father's business. From time to time the mother wondered what made her son so late in coming home; and one night she thought she would find out for herself whether the dry bush hanging out before the wide doors of one of those cavernous taverns had tempted Franceschino to try the red wine within, and perhaps take a hand at cards with some other loiterers. Alas! for Venturella when the indignant matron found out the charm which had led to the boy's delay. She was not likely to hold her tongue about it. Nor was his father, who beat and cuffed him well; for boys of nineteen at Posilippo will meekly bear a cuffing from a parent, when they would not tolerate a finger's weight from any one else. Then came the rage of Venturella's mother; and spite of Padre Cataldo's having elicited the fact that no greater wrong had been done than a few silly promises and one shy kiss, all Posilippo was loud in crying, Fie for shame! on the fawn-eyed Venturella. At length those older than herself and wiser than her mother took the matter in hand. Could nothing be done? Stern fortune answered, Nothing. Venturella's marriage-portion was far from being made up. She was an idle hussy, and only worked when she could not help it. The rest of the time she paddled with naked feet in the silver sands, tempting the tiny waves to kiss them, or gathered scarlet poppies from among the green corn and twisted them in her raven hair. Worse than all, Franceschino was equally behindhand with his fortune; and nineteen was too young for a lad to marry, though fifteen was none too soon for a Neapolitan maiden.

There was, however, something in the silent sauvagerie of the strange girl which made it evident to her betters that she could not be thwarted with safety. There was something deeper than words in the sudden flash of those wild eyes when they looked up fiercely, and then fell beneath the long, fringed lids, and lay in shadow like pools in some dense forest. Venturella shrank, half angry, half ashamed, at every breath of blame; while her eyes grew larger and deeper, and the round, full cheeks became pallid and sunken.

“What is to be done with that wayward girl?” was the ever-recurring question among the Vernons, who seemed to take upon their own charitable shoulders every [pg 359] burden that weighed upon their numerous friends, the Posilippians. At length a suggestion was made that Venturella should be sent to school far away from present associations, where she would have numerous girls of her own age to divert her, and where she might learn fine needle-work and embroidery—the only thing, besides paddling in the sea and weaving wreaths of wild flowers, for which she had ever shown any disposition. Meanwhile, a dot was to be thought of for her; not so very much was wanted to make up the necessary sum—about 4,500 francs. And then, when Venturella should be wiser and Franceschino older, who knows but what love's young dream may turn out true at last?

It did not take us long to get intimate with the names and habits of the rural population around us. They were quite willing to receive us as friends, and seemed to expect a ready sympathy from us in all their concerns. Unlike the peasants of an English village, the best of whom, at least amongst the women, cultivate so little acquaintance with each other, here everybody knew everybody else; and though I do not pretend to say there was less gossiping among them, it always struck me that there was less of that sour ill-nature which is apt to characterize the English cottager's comments on her neighbors. No doubt this arises in a greater degree from the nature of the people than from acquired virtue. It is only in northern, damp climes, like the English, that the necessary ills of life are so heightened and intensified by the general sense of moral and physical discomfort which a heavy atmosphere and a gray sky produce. We all know what it is to wake in the morning with a vague sense of apprehension, as if the post were about to bring us a distressing letter which our imagination foresaw. We all know the ceaseless and unreasoning feeling of being out of spirits which also tempts us to be out of temper. We are acquainted with the blue-devils, and we are generally taciturn and inclined to gloom. The Italian knows nothing of this. The very great and constantly-pervading influence these feelings have over our daily life is absolutely beyond the limits of his experience, unless, of course, he is suffering from a deep sorrow or a real physical malady. To the age of eighty, he wakes in the morning with the same sensation of joyous energy or placid pleasure which we were beginning to lose before we were eight. He is passionate; but he is not irritable. He has paroxysms of despair, but he knows no constant gloom. Our impatience, our tendency to being “put out,” are enigmas to him. The small hindrances of every day and every hour are less a great deal to him than the swarms of his pestering southern flies are to us. Pazienza (patience) is for ever on his lips; and it is no vain word, for patient he is to a degree which is exasperating to behold. When he is waiting, he is not gnawing an invisible bit, as we are doing, and grinding his teeth to powder. He is simply enjoying the being alive; and it does not much matter to him whether he chews the delicious cud of existence waiting at your door or sitting in his own home. You may make him furiously angry; and as likely as not he will stab you in the back and in the dark. But you cannot make him cross, or fretful, or peevish, or low-spirited. Depend upon it, if he is ever any [pg 360] one of these things, it is high time to call in the doctor, who probably will declare his case already hopeless. On the other hand, if anything—and it may often be a trifle—thoroughly rouses a Neapolitan, it is fearful. It becomes a rabbia (a rage), as they themselves express it; and then they are blind and deaf to reason and expostulation, and run amuck of all that comes in their way. It is possible that the extraordinary violence which seizes them is, in a measure, purely physical, and that that also in a measure diminishes their responsibility. Evidently, they think so themselves. Era una rabbia[92] is considered almost an excuse for the worst crimes, so long as these were committed in the heat of passion. And probably, in the long run, this has seriously affected the moral sense; so that good and reasoning people fail to be as much horrified at some murder committed in a brawl as we should be. They look upon an event of the kind almost in the light of a mutual misfortune between the murdered and the murderer. It is at least certain that the line of demarcation which separates inward resentment from the outward act of guilt is more easily crossed by these children of the sun, and does not presume the existence of so much previous demoralization as it would do with us. Yet I am far from intending to write an apology for the Neapolitan character. There is a great deal about them which is very graceful and very attractive; and when they are really good and refined, they are most lovable. But this is exceedingly rare. As a people, they are venal, deceitful, mercenary, and treacherous. But with it all, they are exactly like children; good or naughty, as the case may be, but always children.

Frank not being with us, the Vernons had undertaken to procure for us a carriage and a pair of horses, with a well-conducted coachman, to hire by the month. Indeed, had Frank been there, he could not have done it half as well as they did; for all these transactions require you to be acquainted with the current charges and with the character of the people; and Frank had no experience in either. The Vernons concluded the bargain for us with Pascarillo, the man from whom they always hired a vehicle when they wanted one; and a fine, handsome-looking fellow he was, with the reputation of being rather a gay Lothario, but, on the whole, an honest man as Neapolitans go. Our carriage was delightfully roomy. It held four with admirable ease, and five at a pinch, together with cloaks and cushions, luncheon and drawing materials, whenever we went on an excursion. In the evening, we could close it. We had two very fleet horses, not at all fine-looking, and rather undersized for the carriage, but the best little beasts to go I ever saw. Our coachman was a veritable son of Jehu. He was a miserable object, mean and despicable to look at, diminutive, with bleared eyes, a beardless chin, and the expression of a low coward. But never have I sat behind such a coachman as that. I believe he would have taken us up the wall of a house and down the other side in perfect safety. It did not signify what his horses did, or what evident peril we got into, he always managed quite quietly to bring us right again without any expression of vehemence or alarm. Suddenly, one day, our coachman [pg 361] vanished. An old man appeared in his stead, and a pair of grays, larger than the little brown horses. We made no remark, supposing it was an accident, and that our former equipage would return in time. That day we set out for the Vomero—the height above Posilippo, covered with beautiful villas, and commanding a superb view, or rather many views. The horses jibbed. We were greatly alarmed. They could not be got up the hill, and we had to go home. We sent an indignant message to Pascarillo, and hoped it would never happen again. But it did happen; not once nor twice only. And then Pascarillo was sent for in person to render an account of himself. There he stood, six foot two, with broad chest, a forest of hair, and an august presence. Ida, the universal spokeswoman, with her fluent Italian and her determined energy, left him in no doubt as to her opinion of his conduct. He heard her out silently and calmly, and then replied that the signorina was quite right; he was conscious that his conduct had been inexcusable, and that we had serious cause for displeasure. He had not kept to his bargain, and he was aware of it. It should not happen again; and with a polite bow, he retired. It did not happen again. He had tried to take us in, and he had not succeeded—just a little speculation that had failed, and that was all! As for any rancor at being scolded, or any humiliation at having to make an apology, such sentiments did not trouble the breast of Pascarillo for a second. He probably only said to himself, “Better luck next time.” Our little horses came back, and our impish young coachman with them. We had never again to complain. But the impression made on Mary's imagination by our coachman's face was such that she had scruples of conscience about Paolino being allowed to converse with him on the coach-box. Paolino was, therefore, seriously informed that for a footman to talk to the coachman when the ladies were in the carriage was not good manners. And from that moment silence was maintained; and Paolino's morals were left untainted, as he sat, radiant in clean white cotton gloves and a new necktie, enjoying the delights of drives and picnics at least as much as the persons on whose account they were undertaken.

The Female Religious Of America.

In this busy world of labor, where mankind seems exclusively bent on the acquisition of wealth, fame, or power, on fashion, folly, and empty pleasures, how seldom we pause to consider seriously the diversity and multiplicity of the elements of humanity by which we are surrounded! How few, in their headlong career after vain desires, ask themselves if this world were made for them alone; if the end and object of life, the first gift of a merciful Creator, is merely selfish enjoyment, or whether the social compact, as well as the laws of God, do not require of us to assist in every way possible our less fortunate or more afflicted fellow-creatures.

It requires little reflection or effort to distinguish the favorites of fortune—those whose lot having been cast in pleasant places, shine in the public regard like beings of a superior order. Worldly success is ever prominent, and its devotees are always ready to court its notice and extol its merits. To be fashionable is to be fawned upon; to be influential, sought after; to wield power is to be placated. Not so with the humble, the poor, the ignorant, and the obscure; the victims of physical affliction or of moral degradation. They are usually shunned, often despised, and, as far as possible, contemptuously ignored. They constitute the outcasts of “society,” and, when they come betwixt the wind and its nobility, are merely objects of contempt, barren pity, or downright loathing. Yet these very unfortunates comprise, even in our own favored land, a very large and, in an indirect sense, a potent constituent of our population. Always with us, no matter how much we may attempt to separate ourselves from them, they appeal to us for help in the name of all we hold sacred; and their supplications, no matter how mutely made, if unheeded, are certain to be followed, even in this life, by a blight on our souls as well as a curse to our bodies. The heart of man becomes hardened, the fine perception of fraternal love and charity with which he is naturally blessed withers and shrivels up, and he becomes a mere embodiment of self, an arid isolation, in proportion as he steels himself against the cries and sufferings of his kind. The very ignorance he will not help to remove, the want and squalor he refuses to alleviate, rise up in judgment against him, and, developing into crimes against life and property, haunt his footsteps, and but too often mark him for their prey.

As in all things else, if we want an exemplar for our conduct in relation to our fellow-beings, we must look to the church. Following the teachings of her divine Founder, from the earliest ages she has recognized the existence of the vast amount of misery, poverty, vice, and ignorance which underlies the surface of civilization, ancient and modern, and has used every effort to mitigate it. While yet the successors of S. Peter were [pg 363] struggling with the effete though polished paganism of the dismembered Roman Empire, and the greater part of Europe was enshrouded in the darkness of barbarism, societies of holy men and pious women were established and sustained by the popes and the fathers of the church, to mitigate in some degree, by their prayers and good works, the evils which beset society in its earliest transition state. The principal evils to be combated at that time were the ferocity of heathenism outside the confined limits of Christendom, and, within, the mental obscurity of the barbaric catechumens and neophytes. Physical destitution, in our signification of the term, was but little known beyond the limits of a few great cities; for men's wants were few and easily supplied before the increase of population and the unequal distribution of property became general in the Old World. Therefore we find that the monks and nuns of the IVth century, and for many hundreds of years afterwards, devoted themselves mainly to preaching and teaching, to the multiplication of copies of the Holy Scriptures, and to praying for the conversion of mankind. Thus the order founded by S. Basil, Archbishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, a.d. 362, and that of S. Benedict, Abbot of Norcia, in Italy, in 529, and the numerous cenobitic communities which sprang from them, all more or less strictly observing the rules laid down by those great lights of the church, considered prayer, humility, and obedience the essential principles of their foundation.

Congregations of women devoted to the worship of God, prayer, and poverty were coeval with, if not anterior to, those of men; for we find that S. Anthony, in the latter part of the IIId century, placed his sister in a “house of virgins,” of which she afterwards became abbess; and that on Christmas day, 352, in S. Peter's Church in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the habit and veil on Marcellina, enjoining on her a life of mortification and prayer. A little later, mention is made of SS. Marcella, Lea, and Paula as distinguished Roman women who forsook the world, and spent their remaining life in prayer and good works; the latter especially, who, with her daughter, built a hospital at Bethlehem, erected a monastery for S. Jerome and his monks, and founded in Palestine three convents for female recluses, of which she took personal charge. S. Basil found many such convents in existence, and established several more within his jurisdiction, one of which was presided over by his sister Macrina, at Pontus. S. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, up to 407, writes that in Egypt the congregations of women were as numerous as the monasteries; and S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (396-430), built a convent of nuns, of which his sister was superior, giving it, in 423, a written rule, still followed by the religious who bear his name. Four years after, S. Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Casino, the rules of which, having been approved by Gregory the Great, in 595, have been very generally adopted by many religious bodies of men and women in Europe and America.

At first these religious institutions were confined to Italy and the East; but as the light of the faith gradually extended over Europe, religious houses were multiplied; and though for a long time each convent was governed by its own [pg 364] inmates, and followed the ancient rules, modified in many instances by peculiar circumstances, it was eventually found judicious to form them into distinct orders or congregations, in which all the establishments of a particular foundation were governed by a general head or superior. The strict requirements of prayer, humility, and obedience were still observed; but to these were added the education of the children of the poor, alms-giving, and other acts of external devotion. Wherever a church was built, a monastery planted, or a number of people gathered together to worship God, there was generally to be found a convent, wherein the ailing might find relief; the afflicted, consolation; and the ignorant of the female sex, enlightenment. There the young whose parents were scarcely out of the slough of barbarism were taught their catechism and the beautiful prayers and litanies of the church, as well as to weave, spin, and all the other duties of a civilized housewife. While the clergy, secular and regular, went among the adults, preaching, instructing, and baptizing, holy women were near at hand to pray for the success of their efforts, and to show, by their gentle charities and meek demeanor, the loveliness and beneficence of the Christian religion.

One of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church is that she, and she alone, freed woman from the grossest slavery, and placed her in her proper sphere of usefulness and influence. By the sacrament of marriage, woman was made the honored equal of man; by her commandments and precepts, the church guarded her liberty and her purity, exalted her authority in the family, and recognized in her, even in death, the loving protectress of her offspring. But the church did more than all this. She gave to woman a part in her divine mission, a share in the most glorious task ever allotted to humanity—the propagation of the law of the Most High; and the dispensation of his mercies and benevolence. We are not surprised, then, to learn that in past ages, “when faith was young,” the most gifted and high-born of their sex in every Christian land, daughters of nobles and princes, abandoning all the fascinations of the world, even those of royalty itself, were to be found eager to take part in the great work of religion, and consecrate their lives to prayer, penance, and charity, for the sake of the poor and helpless.

Such humility and implicit faith in the goodness of God could not have been unavailing; and we who now enjoy the blessings of true morality, with the refinements and graces of true civilization, seldom cast a thought back to the days of semi-barbarism among our forefathers, when the only light that illumined the gloom of the outer world proceeded from the lamp of the sanctuary, and the only asylum open to the affectionate and modest soul of woman was the humble convent, where she could surround herself with the innocent and unstained children of both sexes, and teach them the way of salvation. Beyond those sacred enclosures, in bygone days, were little but passion, grossness, and self-indulgence; while within reigned peace, delicacy, and that knowledge which is justly called the beginning of wisdom. The world at length commences to acknowledge the incomparable services of the monks and doctors, the penmen and preachers of the so-called dark ages; [pg 365] but who shall count up the debt of gratitude we owe to the thousands upon thousands of holy women who, spurning every earthly allurement, abandoning home, friends, and country, have sought, generation after generation, to win an eternal reward by unceasing prayer and continuous acts of benevolence? Europe is still, as in the past, enjoying the benefits of the labors of her pious daughters; India, China, and the furthest confines of the eastern hemisphere are reaping the advantages of the missionary efforts of the good nuns and Sisters; but America seems destined to be in the future the field whereon the full effulgence of God's goodness is to be made manifest in the persons of his chosen handmaids.

To us especially the presence of so many pious and educated women is of incalculable advantage. The Catholic body in the United States has to combat a much more insidious and dangerous foe than was ever arrayed against the church, even in her darkest days of persecution. Then Christianity had only to shatter the idol of imperial Rome, already tottering to its base; now we have to fight against what may be termed civilized paganism, energetic, unscrupulous, and worldly-wise, which aims at mere sensuous enjoyments, cultivates the intellect at the expense of the soul, and even attempts to use the very evidences of God's works as a justification for their contempt of his law, and as argument against his existence itself. At the worst, the rude pagan of Northern and Western Europe had a belief in a superior Being, and an acknowledged, innate dependence on his will; but the fashionable sceptic of to-day, the learned doubter of our schools and academies, believes in nothing but himself, and obeys his own whims as his highest rule of morality. It is a melancholy fact, but none the less true, that, according to official authority, nearly one-half of the people of this country, male and female, practically believe in no form of religion whatever. Disgusted at the perpetual wranglings and disagreements of the sects in the name of Christianity; trained into mere cultivated animals by a system of public tuition which ignores God, or recognizes his existence only to ridicule and travesty his word; and freed from all the restraints which the church so wisely throws around her children from their earliest infancy, is it wonderful that the majority of the youth of this nation should grow up in the actual deification of their own prejudices and passions? With so many instances daily and hourly presented to our eyes, are we to be surprised that persons thus reared should be so active in creating a public opinion among us which is not Catholic, nor even Protestant, but simply and absolutely heathenish, without the refinement of the ancient Greeks to soften its grossness, or the pride of the Roman to save it from cupidity and dishonor?

How all-important is it, then, to parents to be able to find schools wherein their children—those loved ones whom they have been instrumental in bringing into the world, and for whose eternal welfare they are responsible—will be cared for and instructed, taught habits of industry as well as accomplishments, and in which bands of zealous, educated, and religious women are ever ready to plant and nurture the seeds of virtue in their hearts, while shielding their young minds [pg 366] from even the shadow of contamination. Such guardians of the female youth can only be found in the nunneries, convents, and schools of the Catholic Church. There their lives are wholly and exclusively devoted to works of benevolence, of which the religious instruction of the ignorant is by no means the least. The world for them has neither cares nor attractions; they move, live, and have their being in an atmosphere of order, prayer, and tranquillity, their very appearance being in itself a homily of obedience and cheerful reliance on the goodness of their Maker.

Even though the educational establishments of the nuns and Sisters are in their infancy, there are few parents who need deprive their children of the advantages to be gained only in them. A quarter of a century ago, we could only boast of sixty-six such institutions, while now we have nearly four hundred academies alone. What excuse, therefore, is there for a piously-inclined mother or a discriminating father to imperil the happiness and faith of her or his children by sending them to secular schools where the training they receive is worse than artificial? In the convents they can be taught every accomplishment that befits a young lady, no matter how high her station in life, without being made the shallow creature, the mere puppet of fashion, which we find so often “turned out” by the modern secular school-mistresses of our time; without heart, feeling, and, we might almost say, with no fixed perception of right and wrong.

Then we have two hundred and forty select schools, or an average of four for each diocese, attended by boarders or those living with their relations. These differ from the academies only in degree, being intended for the benefit of children whose position in life does not demand the same elaborate mental culture, or whose school-days are necessarily short. Still, they receive the same attention, and are subjected to precisely similar moral influences, as the others. But the poor—those whose parents are unable to pay for their education—are they to have none of the advantages so freely accorded their wealthy neighbors? Must they be thrust into the tainted atmosphere of our public schools, and left to shift for themselves? Not so. The poor have ever been the primary objects of the good Sisters' solicitude; and though they count their academies by hundreds, the number of their free schools, parish, orphan, and industrial, may be reckoned by thousands, and the pupils by myriads.

In the Diocese of New York there are forty-six of these female schools, with over twenty thousand children, whose tuition is gratuitous, besides some three thousand inmates of orphan asylums and other charitable institutions for juveniles. In the Philadelphia diocese there are thirty-five Sisters' free schools, containing nearly ten thousand scholars, in addition to the orphans. In Cincinnati, where the school system has been brought to a state of great efficiency, the proportion of the attendants to the Catholic population is much greater. We have no means of ascertaining the total number of pupils in the entire country; but if we take the three dioceses above mentioned as a criterion, it will be found that in the United States there are nearly three hundred thousand girls daily receiving at the hands of the Sisters [pg 367] of various congregations a free, thorough, and practical Catholic education. The expense alone of this great work of charity, if not performed without compensation, would be, judging from the cost of the public schools of New York, at least eight millions of dollars annually. If we add to the number of girls in the free schools the fifty or sixty thousand pupils in the six hundred and forty academies and select schools, we will find that about three hundred and fifty thousand female children are, in this year of grace 1874, under the more than maternal care of the religious of the Catholic Church.

Who can estimate the immense amount of good which is accomplished in this manner? Who can measure the beneficent effects to the country produced by these institutions of learning, which annually send to their homes so many thousands of children to gladden the hearts of fond parents, not so much by their varied acquirements, as by their gentleness of disposition and unaffected piety? If we cannot gauge the merits of the Sisters by what we see before us, how much less capable are we of estimating the reward which their long years of devotion will receive from Him who said of little children, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

As to the efficiency of the nuns and Sisters as teachers of the young people of their own sex, there is scarcely a second opinion, even among non-Catholics. Many Protestants and unbelievers, while professing little or no religion themselves, but who would not see their fair daughters follow their example, are careful to place them under the charge of the daughters of the church, well knowing that, while their minds will be amply stored with useful and elegant knowledge, their impressionable hearts will be guarded against the follies and sins of the world. If all the communities in the country—in number about forty-five—were to devote their entire labor alone to this great work of education, what a benediction would they deserve from untold millions!

But they do not stop here. They go much further, and, with some few exceptions, their charity takes a far wider range. There are the poor waifs, left deserted on the highways, to be rescued from impending death and nursed into consciousness; the orphan, who has been deprived of its natural guardians, to be cared for; the unfortunate pariah of her sex, to be consoled and encouraged to resume the path of virtue; the jails, where lie the agents of passion and crime, to be visited; the aged and infirm to be taken by the hand, and led down the slope of life with tender solicitude. Again, the deaf, the blind, the insane, the wounded, the sick, and even the incurable, are, according to their several needs, objects of unremitting attention. No evil is so deep-seated, no affliction so bitter, no disease, whether of the mind or of the body, so loathsome, that the holy women of the church, with God's assistance, cannot assuage or cure.

To teach children is doubtless a responsible and laborious occupation, but nevertheless not without attractions; but to walk day and night the wards of a hospital, and breathe the dire contagion of disease, or, in the reformatory, to have the ear filled with the blasphemies and ribaldries learned in the lowest dens of vice, are surely trials to appall the stoutest heart, and to [pg 368] test to the very utmost the constancy and zeal of delicately-nurtured women. Yet the capacious bosom of the church has room enough, has rest and shelter, for all classes of unfortunates. In the sixty-two dioceses and vicariates into which the United States is divided, there are nearly three hundred foundling, orphan, deaf, blind, and insane asylums, reformatories, protectories, industrial institutions, homes for the aged, houses of the Sisters of the Poor, as well as infirmaries and hospitals; the former numbering over two hundred, and the latter about ninety, or, collectively, an average of five charitable institutions for each ecclesiastical division.

What a load of human misery is thus presented to the eye and committed to the relief of the indefatigable followers of Christ! Who can imagine that has not experienced it the daily round of toil, of watching, and solicitude which constantly awaits the footsteps of the gentle Sister, as she goes among her helpless clients in the foundling asylum, listens to the tale of woe and crime from the still youthful lips of the repentant Magdalene, or comforts the outcast of his kind at the very foot of the scaffold. Watch how lovingly she hushes the deserted babe or the scarcely less pitiable orphan to sleep; how kindly she takes the hand so long stained by contact with the vicious and the guilty into her own soft palm, and breathes words of comfort and encouragement into ears long used only to curses and vile speech; how deftly she smoothes the pillow of the sick, and smiles on the second childishness of her protégés, the aged and infirm poor. At her approach, the suffering child forgets its pains and stretches forth its little arms for her aid; the hospital loses half its ennui and gloom, and even the condemned cell is illumined by a ray of sunlight when she enters it. In fact, wherever there is poverty, sickness, or suffering of any kind, there is the place for the devoted Sister, and there, in truth, she becomes “a ministering angel.”

The distribution of these asylums and hospitals is another interesting feature in their capacity for general usefulness. In dioceses having an estimated Catholic population of over one hundred thousand, they may be thus classified: In Buffalo there is one to every 8,000 Catholics; in Cleveland, St. Louis, and Louisville, one to 13,000; in San Francisco, one to 15,000; Albany, one to 18,000; in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, one to 23,000; Newark, Alton, and St. Paul, one to 25,000; Boston, one to 30,000; Milwaukee, one to 40,000; Chicago, one to 45,000; Galveston and Providence, one to 60,000; Hartford, one to 80,000; and in Springfield, one to every 150,000. Of the less populous dioceses, Oregon has 1, Burlington 1, Columbus 2, Covington 3, Erie 1, Fort Wayne 3, Grass Valley 3, Mobile 3, Monterey and Los Angeles 5, Nashville 2, Natchez 2, Natchitoches 3, Nesqually 4, Portland 2, Richmond 3, Rochester 5, Santa Fé 2, Savannah 3, Vincennes 4, Wheeling 2, Wilmington 1, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, Charleston 2. Green Bay, Harrisburg, La Crosse, Little Rock, Ogdensburg, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and North Carolina, all small dioceses or sparsely-settled vicariates, have none.

It is impossible to give anything like an approximate report of the vast number of persons of all ages and sexes who find relief, advice, [pg 369] and protection in these asylums and hospitals; for we are not aware that there is in existence any general or full returns from one-half of the charitable institutions scattered so broadcast over the country. We can therefore only attempt to form an estimate of the whole by taking the statistics nearest us. For example, in this diocese there are 572 girls and very young boys in the female protectory, 1,297 in seven orphan asylums, 546 penitents in the House of the Good Shepherd; while in one of the four city hospitals, S. Vincent's, 950 patients were received during last year. In Brooklyn there are 1,041 orphans, 208 penitents, 420 patients in two hospitals, in addition to nearly 3,000 externs who received medical and surgical attendance, and 229 old men and women under the charge of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The care of these charitable institutions is not confined to any particular community, but, according to locality or peculiar circumstances, falls to the lot of different congregations. Thus of the asylums, 5 per cent. are under the charge of the Sisters of Notre Dame; 14 per cent. under the Sisters of Mercy; 34 per cent. under the Sisters of Charity; 8-½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; 6 per cent. under the Little Sisters of the Poor; 2-½ per cent. each under the Sisters of Providence, Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, S. Teresa, and S. Dominic; 5-½ per cent. under the Sisters of S. Francis; 10 per cent. under the Sisters of S. Joseph; 1-½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Holy Name, S. Benedict, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame, besides a few others belonging to different communities. Of hospitals, the Sisters of Mercy have 18 per cent., the Sisters of Charity 37, Providence 2, Holy Cross 1, S. Francis 7, Little Sisters of the Poor 2, S. Dominic 5, S. Joseph 11, Sœur Hospitalières 2, Nazareth 5, and of all others 20 per cent.

Of the teaching orders and communities in the United States who devote themselves solely to the higher branches of education and, when possible, to the gratuitous instruction of poor children, we have the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Ursulines, the Visitation, the Immaculate Conception, Presentation, and the Sisters of the Precious Blood, Loretto, S. Clare, Our Lady of Angels, S. Ann, S. Mary, Sacred Heart of Mary, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, Humility of Mary, S. Agnes, Incarnate Word, Holy Child, and Daughters of the Cross. The Carmelites, Servite Nuns, and Sisters of S. Anthony are contemplative communities, though, in some special instances, the poor are taught and assisted in their convents.

A short account of the origin and growth in this country of some of the most prominent orders and communities may be found acceptable to those who take an interest in the successive developments in the church of works of education and charity.

The first convent established within the present limits of the United States—if we except some, perhaps, that might have existed long years since in New Mexico and California—was that of the Ursulines, opened at New Orleans in 1727, when that city was a portion of French territory. For about sixty years, the nuns were either natives of France or of French descent, till 1791, when, [pg 370] on the occasion of the revolt of the French colonists in the West Indies, the convent, with its academy, hospital, and asylum, received large accessions from San Domingo. This house still exists, with an affiliation at Opelousas, and has branches in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Alton, Cleveland, Galveston, Green Bay, Mobile, and several other dioceses; that of New York, situated in what was formerly a portion of Westchester County, being the principal, containing forty-seven members. The Ursuline Order was founded in 1532, at Brescia, Italy, by S. Angela of Merici, and was approved by Pope Paul III., in 1544, as a religious congregation under the name of S. Ursula. Eighteen years after, at the request of S. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, it was obliged to enclosure, created an order, and placed under the rule of S. Augustine by Pope Gregory XIII. Its special duty is the education of young ladies; but a poor school is, when necessary, attached to each house.

Next in point of time was the Carmelite Nunnery, erected in 1790, near Port Tobacco, Maryland, through the exertions of the Rev. Charles Neale. That zealous clergyman, having visited Europe in that year, returned with four nuns, of whom three are said to have been Americans and one English. On account of the difficulties surrounding their locality, the community was afterwards transferred to Baltimore, in 1831, and permitted to open a school, which, however, was soon after discontinued. There are now in all eight houses of this order in America, of which two—the mother-house and one in St. Louis—are of the reform of S. Teresa; the others, following the less strict rule, add the care of outside schools, asylums, and hospitals to their other duties. The Carmelite order of monks was founded in the early part of the XIIIth century under the rule of S. Basil, which was exceedingly strict as regards mortification, prayer, and fasting. The order of nuns was not created for two centuries after, when John Lorett, twenty-sixth general, founded a female institute under the rule of his order, and established several convents in France. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V. approved the foundation; and in 1457 Françoise d'Amboise, the widowed Duchess of Brittany, built the house at Vannes, in her own possessions, taking the veil and habit at the same time. A hundred years later, S. Teresa of Castile, finding that many innovations and relaxations had crept in, undertook the work of reform, and her efforts were eventually approved by Pope Pius IV. in 1562. Thus there became two branches of the order—the Mitigated Carmelites, whose rule is not so austere as those of the Discalceated, who follow the reform of S. Teresa. The latter are obliged to observe perpetual silence, abstain from the use of flesh-meat, sleep on straw, and wear habits of coarse serge and sandals instead of shoes. Their habit is a brown gown, scapular, and hood, and in choir a white cloak and black veil.

Soon after the arrival of the Carmelites in Maryland, an effort was made by a few Catholic young ladies in Philadelphia to establish a religious community. The principal movers were Miss Alice Lalor and a couple of friends. Her companions, however, having died before anything tangible could be effected, Miss Lalor left Philadelphia for Georgetown, D. C., in 1798, and established herself there as a teacher. [pg 371] Gradually she drew around her young persons of similar views and tastes, and a community was formed, at first simply for the purpose of prayer and education; but when, in 1816, their rules had been approved by the Most Rev. Leonard Neale, Archbishop of Baltimore, and recognized by the Holy Father, they became a regular branch of the Visitation Order, and submitted to solemn vows and enclosure. Their houses now number about twenty, and are to be found in Baltimore, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Mobile, Covington, Dubuque, and several dioceses in the South and Southwest. The order dates back to 1610, when it was founded by S. Francis de Sales and S. Jane Frances, Baronne de Chantal. It was at first merely a congregation, but by permission of Pope Paul V. it was changed into a regular order, the essential principles of its rule being the education of the children of the rich, though many free schools for the poor are found attached to its convents.

While Miss Lalor was working silently in the District of Columbia, there was another pious woman—one whose name is destined to be for ever illustrious in the annals of the church in America—nobly struggling against innumerable difficulties in the same holy cause. This was Mrs. Eliza A. Seton, the foundress, in the United States, of the glorious Sisterhood of Charity. Like all men or women whom Providence selects for great ends, Mrs. Seton passed through a long novitiate of sorrow and trials before she was found qualified to lay the corner-stone of an institution which, above all others, has made Catholic charity and womanly self-sacrifice most useful, most respected and beloved amongst us. Born in New York on the 28th of August, 1774, of wealthy Protestant parents, her infancy and girlhood were passed amid all the scenes of pleasure and luxury that family position and affluence could command; and it was not till she had married and entered upon matronhood that she experienced her first great grief. This arose out of the death of her father, Dr. Bayley, who, in his devotion to the sick immigrants, at that time very numerous, fell a victim to ship-fever. His daughter, it would appear, felt for him even more than filial affection and respect, and his sudden death made such an impression on her spirits and such inroads on her health that she was obliged to make a tour in Europe in company with her husband, also an invalid. Her mind had early been imbued with strong religious impressions, as well as cultivated by careful study and extensive reading; and during her stay in Southern Europe, where she had ample opportunities of visiting the churches and convents, and of seeing for herself the beauties and glories of Catholicity, she first began to long for that rest for the weary and doubt-distracted soul which is only found in the bosom of the church. Her husband, dying in December, 1802, was buried in Italy; and she, now left the sole guardian of her children, returned to America. But the thoughts that had come to her in the solemn basilicas of the Old World followed her to the New, and would not be dismissed. She struggled much with them, prayed fervently, sought the spiritual advice of many pious friends, and finally, in 1805, entered the church. We of this generation can hardly conceive the sacrifices Mrs. Seton made in thus becoming a Catholic. So rife and uncompromising was [pg 372] the spirit of Protestant bigotry in those days that the moment it was known that she had become a convert, every friend and relative, the companions of her youth and the sharers of her blood, shrank from her with positive loathing, as if her touch was infectious. All forsook her except her children. But she was a woman of undaunted courage as well as of implicit faith. She resolved to leave New York, and take up her residence in Baltimore, then the only city in the country where Catholics had either influence or social standing. Here, by the advice of the archbishop, she determined to devote herself to teaching, and, to carry out her idea more fully, to establish a community. Accordingly, in May, 1809, we find her, with four companions, setting out for Emmittsburg to take possession of a log house and commence her grand enterprise. On the first of June, these pioneers of the Sisters of Charity in the United States arrived at their destination, and on the day following, the Feast of Corpus Christi, they appeared in the little church of the college in their habits—“white muslin caps with crimpt borders, black crape bands round the head and fastened under the chin, black dresses, and short capes similar to those of the religious of Italy.”

At first the community was called the Sisters of S. Joseph; but in 1810, it was agreed to assimilate it to the Congregation of Charity in Europe, and, through the influence of the Rev. F. Flaget, it was hoped that some Sisters might be induced to come from France to take charge of the little community. Owing to the disturbed state of the times, F. Flaget failed to procure the desired aid; but he brought with him the rule of the Sisters, which, having been adopted by the community, was approved by Archbishop Neale, January 17, 1812.

The growth of the new congregation was slow, for many unforeseen difficulties had to be encountered; but having been planted deep in the soil, it gradually grew strong and vigorous, and, when it once commenced to throw out offshoots in every direction, they took root and flourished with wonderful vitality. In 1814, some Sisters were sent to Philadelphia to take charge of the new Catholic orphan asylum; and in 1817, Mother Seton, with Sisters Cecilia O'Conway and Felicité Brady, came to New York, at the request of Bishop Connolly, to superintend a similar institution established by the New York Catholic Benevolent Society. They selected a small frame house on Prince Street, where now stands their noble asylum. How the houses of this illustrious community have multiplied during the last half-century is truly astonishing, and can only be attributed to the help of a Power more than human. Nearly one hundred asylums and hospitals are now under their charge; about the same number of academies and select schools claim their care; free schools and scholars beyond computation enjoy the blessings of their pious instruction; and their convents and establishments dot the country in every direction. In New York alone, where the mother-house of the province is situated at Font Hill, Yonkers, there are attached to it 409 professed Sisters, 92 novices, and 13 postulants, who conduct 72 different establishments in New York, Jersey City, Brooklyn, New Haven, Providence, and Columbia. In Newark, in the mother-house of [pg 373] the diocese, at Madison, N. J., there are 190 members; and in almost every section of the country where Catholicity is at all known, the simple black dress and cape, and the small white collar, of the daughters of S. Vincent de Paul are familiar objects. This congregation, though dating only from March 25, 1634, when Louise de Marillac, widow of Antoine Le Gras, secretary to Marie de Medicis, the first mother of the Daughters of Charity, consecrated her life to God, has now, it is said, more than twenty thousand members throughout the world, all, like their sainted founder, Vincent, unremittingly employed in works of divine charity.

Next in order of usefulness, though not in age, come the Sisters of Mercy. This congregation is of Irish origin, having been founded in Dublin, as late as 1827, by Catharine McAuley, a native of that county. Miss McAuley was born September 17, 1787, of Catholic parents; but they dying when she was quite young, her guardianship was assumed by a Protestant family, who brought her up in their own faith—if faith it may be called; but the girl early developed a remarkable inclination towards Catholicity, and, when of proper age, reunited herself to the church of her fathers. At thirty-four she found herself the possessor of a large fortune bequeathed to her by her adopted father, who had become a Catholic on his death-bed; and this, with all her subsequent life, she resolved to dedicate to the service of the Almighty. She therefore built at her own expense, in the most fashionable part of the city, a magnificent convent, and, associating with herself several other ladies, commenced the work of instruction and the visitation of the sick poor in their homes and in the public hospitals. The Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, gave her all the assistance in his power, and, after consulting with the Holy See, approved the new foundation. In 1841, Pope Gregory XVI. confirmed the congregation, which is now so strong in the United Kingdom that it numbers 133 convents, besides numerous charitable institutions. Unlike the Sisters of Charity, this congregation has no superior-general, each convent being independent and self-governing.

Though introduced into this country by the late Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, about thirty years ago, the Sisters of Mercy have spread rapidly over the United States. They have already nearly 50 asylums and hospitals, 80 academies and select schools, an immense number of free schools, convents almost as numerous as those of the Sisters of Charity, and considerably over 1,300 members. They are to be found in New York, the New England dioceses, Albany, Philadelphia, Louisville, Pittsburg, most of the old dioceses, and many of the newer ones.

There are other orders and congregations among us, if not so numerous, equally meritorious; for instance, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, who conduct about 30 academies and select schools, in which the very highest order of education is imparted; the Sisters of Notre Dame, also a teaching order, having the care of 20 houses, in which there are 431 boarders and over 1,200 day scholars, besides about 14,000 pupils attending the free schools, half that number in the Sunday-schools, in addition to those taught in evening schools and instructed in various other ways. This congregation, [pg 374] though founded in 1804, by Mother Julia Billiart, assisted by Marie-Louise-Françoise, Vicomtesse Blin de Bourbon, and Catharine Duchâtel, at Amiens, has so extended its labors that it now counts in Belgium, England, and Central America 68 establishments, 12,000 scholars in its boarding and day schools, and over 32,000 children gratuitously taught in its free schools. It was introduced into the United States, in 1840, by the Most Rev. Dr. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati, and, in connection with its convents and academies, has charge of 70 asylums. The Sisters of S. Joseph, numbering about sixty communities, have, by the latest returns, 42 academies, 20 select schools, 20 asylums, and 9 hospitals. These latter are specially charged with the instruction of the colored children of the South. Then there are the congregations of the Third Order of S. Francis and of S. Dominic, whose duties are equally multifarious; the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, whose mission it is to receive and reform the very outcasts of female society, and to save young women from lives of vice and crime; and the meek Little Sisters of the Poor, who actually go about from door to door, from store to market-place, begging, in the name of holy charity, for the crumbs of our tables to feed their aged and decrepit dependents who are tottering on the verge of the grave. Besides these, there are many other communities of pious women in our midst, quietly and unostentatiously pursuing their career of goodness, the history of whose foundation the limits of an article will not allow us to descant upon. Their actions are doubtless recorded in another world, where lie their trust and promised reward.

Thus we have seen how our glorious land is twice blessed by the presence of those pure-minded, zealous, and meek followers of their Saviour. We are blessed in their prayers and in their active charity. No one is so rich as to be independent of their good offices; no one so poor, afflicted, or degraded that they cannot succor and console. The vilest dens of infamy in our crowded cities are made almost sacred by their tread; the far-away prairies and forests resound with their chants and songs of praise; while the daintily-nurtured daughter of the aristocracy is taught, in some convent of the Sacred Heart, or of the Ursulines, to shine in and adorn her social sphere without forgetting that she is a Christian; the poor little negro children of the everglades of Florida, or the savage Indian babes of the Pacific slope, are kneeling at the feet of some Sister of S. Joseph or of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, lisping their first prayer. Without exaggeration, it may be said that there is no ignorance so dense that they will not succeed in expelling; none of the many ills to which flesh is heir that they cannot assuage; and that they, and they alone, of all their sex, “can minister to a mind diseased, and pluck from the heart a deep-rooted sorrow.”

And yet all this toil and pain and solicitude bring with them, even in this world, abundant rewards. Who that has ever entered a convent or a religious house has not been impressed by the gentle air of cheerfulness and inward peace that sits on the faces of its inmates? We look in vain for the anxious glance that betrays [pg 375] an unsatisfied mind, or the deep-drawn lines that tell a tale of worldly struggle and discontent. No; every countenance is serene, placid, and healthful. This is the reward of noble works well performed, the luxury of doing good, to which the women of the outer world are for the most part strangers. But what shall be the eternal recompense for those who thus abandon kindred and home, friends and companions, the pleasures of the world and the passions of the heart, to follow in the footsteps of the Saviour who was crucified for us, and to carry out his precepts, regardless of all consequences, to the end? Such is the holy nun who storms heaven with her prayers for the salvation of mankind and the pardon of national crimes; such the humble Sister who devotes the energies of her mind, the years of her life, nay, her very life itself, to the service of God's poor, helpless, and sinful creatures. Can a nobler ambition than this find place in the human mind? Can the glory, the charity, and the all-absorbing beneficence of the Christian faith find brighter examples and purer exponents than within the convents which so numerously overspread and are continuing to increase on the soil of our young republic?