Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/253

 fayourable to the hopes of the monks, than if I had said I was a heretic or a moslem. They thought me much more likely to become a convert to their religion, since I had none of my own to oppose to it. The monks immediately arranged themselves in theological order, with the whole armour of faith, and laid constant siege to me on allsides; but I was not inclined to any religion, much less to the one I despised. I would sooner have turned Turk.

I received a letter from poor unhappy Eugenia—it was the last she ever wrote. It was to acquaint me with the death of her lovely boy, 'who, haying wandered from the house, had fallen into a trout-stream, where he was found drowned some hours after. In her distracted state of mind, she could add no more than her blessing, and a firm conviction that we should never meet again in this world. Her letter concluded incoherently; and although I should have said, in the morning, that my mind had not room for another sorrow, yet the loss of this