ed the bailiff
that it was his duty to defend the mass, and all the solemnities of the
cathedral with life and limb, and as the bell had rang, ordered the
nuns, who surrounded her, shaking and trembling, to take an oratorium
of some sort or other, and make a beginning by performing it.

The nuns had just taken their places in the organ-loft, the different
parts of a composition that had already been frequently played, were
distributed, violins, oboes, and bass-viols were tried and tuned, when
suddenly Sister Antonia, quite fresh and well, though her face was a
little pale, appeared from the stairs. She had under her arm the parts
of the old Italian mass, on the performance of which the abbess had so
earnestly insisted. To the questions of the nuns, who asked with
astonishment whence she came, and how she had so suddenly recovered,
she replied, "No matter, friends, no matter!" distributed the parts she
had carried, and glowing with enthusiasm, sat down to the organ, to
undertake the direction of the excellent composition. This phenomenon
was a wonderful and truly heavenly consolation to the hearts of the
pious ladies; they at once sat down to their desks with their
instruments, and the very embarrassment in which they were placed, had
the effect of bearing their souls, as if upon wings, through all the
heaven of harmony. The oratorium was played with a musical
magnificence of the noblest and highest kind. Not a breath was heard
through the benches and aisles, and when the Salve Regina, and still
more, when the _Gloria in excelsis_ was performed, it was as if the
whole population in the church was dead. In spite of the four profane
brothers and their followers, not so much as the dust on the pavement
was disturbed, and the cloister remained standing till the end of the
"Thirty Years' War," when it was secularized by virtue of a clause in
the "Treaty of Westphalia."

Six years had passed, and this occurrence had been long forgotten, when
the mother of the four youths came from the Hague, and mournfully
alleging that they had completely disappeared, instituted judicial
inquiries with the magistrates of Aix-la-Chapelle, to learn what road
they had taken from the city. The last account that had been received
of them in the Netherlands, where they purposely resided, was, as she
said, contained in a letter which the preacher had written to his
friend, a schoolmate at Antwerp, on the eve of a _Corpus Christi_ day.
The p