securing it by an iron bolt,-" this is the place in which, for years, I have striven to wring out penitence, for my crimes, from this wasted body. See that worn pavement underneath the figure of the blessed Virgin, often have these hollowed stones listened to thy father's name and thine own, and been as wet with tears as was the grass with the dew which thou sawest to-night sparkling in the moonbeams! But, my child, thy couch of rest is more befitting, than to listen to the tale of a wretched sinner. Here is a bed for thee,-such as it is, thou art welcome to it; and I doubt not thy fatigues will not make thee fastidious."

"But other considerations will," replied Herbert. "I will not deprive thee, kind father, of thine own couch; thine age bespeaks that thou needest more of the comforts of life than one in the prime of youth."

“Hush, hush, my son," replied the monk, whose return to his cell had recalled all the gloomy recollections which the excitement of his journey had tended for a time to dissipate; "talk not of comforts to a man whose sins have doomed him to feed only on the bread of sorrow. Nay, nay; this body, for full seven years, hath never known any other couch save that damp straw in yonder recess, and no softer pillow than that rude stone; and these eyes have gazed on no other prospect

save the fleecy clouds of heaven, which you see through yonder grated window, riding in the firmament! This night, ere this head can be pillowed on the bare earth, ye shall hear these walls reverberating the sound of the lash, whose thongs mas: be tripled to atone for the time during have intermitted my penance! Yes, mutting additional knottings on the the deal aperture of the wall; “has- Qutay day of these, this night, there +i wa or body of Hubert Du

**LINK ENAS words, he embraced selen, km to food; and opening a um : the well, which led to a left his young charge to

the strange vicissitudes, turdays, had befallen him. Tizon may be imagin

mus est in gloomy solitude, to event that had taken place

" from the embrace of a kind Sumascher, from the soil of his native valSi no fan now but a monk,—no home Jong—awy names which he had been aegade fout his Mradle to dread, as standing asso, màu tư mà al that was most opposed to the faith of this sethabers But he knew that the dying of his parent, coupled with the affectionate

kindness of his benefactor, were a sufficient guarantee for his safety; this, combined with his own manliness of disposition, banished from his mind every apprehension. On his bended knees he offered to the God of mercies the thanksgivings of a grateful heart, and earnest entreaties for a continuance of protection to himself and his beloved sister whom he loved as his own soul, and who, by their late common bereavement, seemed to be endeared to him by ties a thousand-fold holier and stronger than before. He plucked from his bosom the sweetest pledge and memorial of his departed father, the companion of all his wanderings, the soother of all his sorrows,-the sweetener of all his joys, the fountain of all his peace-the precious volume that was soiled with the fingers of many a godly ancestor. The tear rolled down his cheek, as he turned to the words of comfort which the Apostle Paul administers to his Thessalonian converts; and which, from the tattered state of the leaf, had evidently before now imparted consolation to many a bereaved mourner: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," &c. Having finished this sub

lime legacy of comfort to the afflicted Christian, he closed the book with its ancient silver clasps, and safely depositing it under his pillow, flung himself in bed, and in a few minutes his eyes were sealed in a happy forgetfulness of the bitterness and sorrows, the fears and apprehensions, the sufferings and trials, of the three preceding days.

It was fully two hours after the sun had climbed the meridian, ere Herbert opened his eyes once more on his cell and his sorrows. The full blaze of the orb of day was streaming through the barred window, and disclosed more fully than the previous night had done, the rigid austerity which was written on every part of his present abode. Its only furniture was a table, a basin of holy water, and a crucifix; whilst a ghastly representation of the horrors of purgatory was rudely delineated above the couch of the ascetic. Herbert, on listening, heard the sound of something resembling heavy blows at measured intervals, proceeding from the adjoining cell. This he was at no difficulty in concluding to be the unhappy man undergoing those self-imposed severities, which the fatigues of the preceding evening had obliged him to forego. "Holy father," cried Her

t, no longer able to restrain himself, and apaching towards the door by which he had seen enter on the preceding night,-"holy father,

if thou hast no pity on thyself, have compassion on the poor orphan whom Providence hath cast on thee; for if thou art resolved not to suspend thy self-tormenting penances, till thou hast driven thy spirit from its earthly tabernacle, what remains for the desolate ones thou wilt leave behind thee, but to be driven forth from this shelter to perish unpitied in the howling wilderness?"

"Peace, peace, my child," responded the unhappy man; "disturb me not in my needful vocation, -my time is not yet finished,—the sun has yet another hour to travel in the firmament ere this penance can be concluded. I prythee interrupt me not, for in so doing, thou wilt only prolong what thou wouldst fain shorten."

Herbert saw there was nothing left but to obey; he occupied the interval in again unclasping his sacred treasure, and found in that blessed directory another and far different peace to his soul, and a surer antidote to a troubled conscience, than the deluded ascetic was seeking in the torturings of the flesh.

The monk, when he had completed his hours of penance, entered the cell where the orphan boy still continued drinking from the sweetest fountain of consolation he had met with, since the hour which drove him from his native hamlet. "It is even so, it is even so," muttered the austere man,