ence of her sister she found a guardian for herself.
They invariably shunned low society, and thus they won the esteem of
all; they passed as young men of virtue as well as of beauty and of
grace. The immorality that dishonored the manhood around them, the
indecency of the conversations they heard, and the open and blasphemous
impiety that often thrilled their dove-like hearts, made them form
a pleasing contrast with themselves and the corrupted society they
had now known to the core; yet, "Say not I have sinned, and what
evil hath befallen me." Who can flee from the eye of God? There's a
sting in the conviction of guilt that will follow its victim through
the ballroom, the mountain cave, or the cloister, to the very side
of the bed of death.

It was when Charles and Henry found their money nearly gone, and the
prospect of poverty before them, they felt in all its painful
anticipations the prospect of a gloomy and unknown future. There is
no pang, perhaps, in nature so keen as that which pierces the rich
and ambitious when certain poverty stares them in the face; perhaps
'tis shame, perhaps 'tis pride, perhaps 'tis the despair that arises
from the shock of blasted hopes--or all together--that weight on the
sinking heart, and make each vital throb like the last heavy thud of
death. Then suicide has a charm and self-destruction a temptation.
Many a turbulent wave has closed the career of a the beggared
spendthrift and the thwarted man of ambition.

Charles commenced now to suffer in anticipation all the pangs of coming
shame, poverty, and humiliation. With remorse returned the virtuous
impressions of childhood, instilled into her tender mind by her
penitent mother. She longed to return to the circle nature had
destined for her, but which seemed more difficult now than to commence
a new disguise. Although she yielded in all virtuous impulses to that
"procrastination which is the thief of time," yet in her after-career
there was a wonderful combination of events, extraordinary and
interesting, which prove a loving and forgiving Providence hearing the
prayer of a penitent mother. But we must raise the curtain and proceed
with the drama of sacred romance whose first cats have given so much
interest and sympathy.

Chapter XVIII.

In Uniform.

It was a bright morning in November, in the year 1684. The people of
Milan were all flocking to the cathedral. It was the feast of the
great St. Charles. The ma