s the sign of redemption over their heads; in a few majestic
sentences he commences his subject; the fire is kindling in his eye,
and the thunder is deepening in his splendid voice. The listeners
are wrapt in breathless attention.

On the outskirts of the crowd there is a young officer, slender,
graceful, tidy to a fault. It is Alvira.

She was passing down the Toledo, and had already heard the saint before
she had seen him. She had heard of the great preacher, but was afraid
to meet him. Grace had followed her in all her wanderings, and the
prayers of her mother were still heard at the throne of God. The crowd
is so great Alvira cannot pass to the Molo, where she was quartered
with her regiment. She must listen.

Strange, consoling ways of divine grace! It was thee, O Lord! who
drew they servant from his convent on that auspicious morning; thou
did'st gather the crowd around him, and inspire him with the words
and theme of his moving discourse! It was thy mercy, smiling with
compassion on a noble but erring soul, which brought her to listen
to those words that would bring thy grace to her heart!

Like one whose eye has caught a brilliant meteor flying through the
heavens, and remains gazing on it until it has disappeared, Alvira
could not remove her eyes from Francis. When she saw his saintly
figure standing on the rude platform, holding in his outstretched
hand the saving sign of redemption, she was seized with an unaccountable
feeling of awe. Although every word of the sermon was heard and
weighed, it seemed as if the pent-up memories of her soul took
precedence of her thoughts, and rushed on her with overwhelming force,
like the winds let loose by the storm-god of old. Everything strange
or sad in her past career lent its quota of color to the dark picture
remorse, with cruel and masterly hand, delineated before her troubled
spirit. The struggle, the agony she had learned to brave in the Duomo
at Milan and the fortress of Messina, rose again with hydra fangs
from the tomb of oblivion in which recent excitements had buried it.
None but her guardian angel knew her soul was once more the battle-field
of contending feelings. At length a crimson blush passed over her
marble features; a crystal tear-drop dimmed her eye; another sprang
from the reservoirs of the heart and stole down the blushing cheek.
Alvira wept.

Tears have a language of their own deep and powerful; they tell of the
weakness of the hu