Page:Francesca Carrara 1.pdf/189

Rh struggles? Methinks it is not well thus to make a fenced boundary of that devotion which should mingle with and aid every action of existence."

Again the wind drove the dark vapours across the moon; a heavy rain began to pour down; and casting one more glance round the gloomy quadrangle, she felt it a relief to gaze on a medal of the Madonna, which hung round her neck. It recalled all the vivid hopes and beliefs of her childhood, when she was wont to kneel before some lovely image, till the face seemed to smile encouragement, and the little supplicant felt as if beneath a mother's eye. This period had long since passed; the discursive reading, the enlightened discourse of her grandfather, had cast her mind in a different mould to the usual superstition of her country; but faith and love were only more pure and perfect in a soul too innocent not to be religious.

At the morrow's early matins, Francesca's attention was particularly drawn towards one nun. Sister Louise was still in the early period of youth, but it was youth from which bloom had utterly departed. The features were thin, even to emaciation, and cheek and lip were alike colourless; while this deadly paleness rendered still more remarkable the large lustrous black eyes, filled with all the light of excited fervour. But when the