he
next two or three hours.'

'Two or three hours?' exclaimed Sister Helena; 'If I stay another hour
in these vaults, I shall expire with fear! Not the wealth of worlds
should bribe me to undergo again what I have suffered since my coming
hither. Blessed Virgin! To be in this melancholy place in the middle
of night, surrounded by the mouldering bodies of my deceased
Companions, and expecting every moment to be torn in pieces by their
Ghosts who wander about me, and complain, and groan, and wail in
accents that make my blood run cold, ..... Christ Jesus! It is
enough to drive me to madness!'

'Excuse me,' replied Lorenzo, 'if I am surprized that while menaced by
real woes you are capable of yielding to imaginary dangers. These
terrors are puerile and groundless: Combat them, holy Sister; I have
promised to guard you from the Rioters, but against the attacks of
superstition you must depend for protection upon yourself. The idea of
Ghosts is ridiculous in the extreme; And if you continue to be swayed
by ideal terrors ...'

'Ideal?' exclaimed the Nuns with one voice; 'Why we heard it ourselves,
Segnor! Every one of us heard it! It was frequently repeated, and it
sounded every time more melancholy and deep. You will never persuade me
that we could all have been deceived. Not we, indeed; No, no; Had the
noise been merely created by fancy ....'

'Hark! Hark!' interrupted Virginia in a voice of terror; 'God preserve
us! There it is again!'

The Nuns clasped their hands together, and sank upon their knees.

Lorenzo looked round him eagerly, and was on the point of yielding to
the fears which already had possessed the Women. Universal silence
prevailed. He examined the Vault, but nothing was to be seen. He now
prepared to address the Nuns, and ridicule their childish
apprehensions, when his attention was arrested by a deep and long-drawn
groan.

'What was that?' He cried, and started.

'There, Segnor!' said Helena; 'Now you must be convinced! You have
heard the noise yourself! Now judge, whether our terrors are
imaginary. Since we have been here, that groaning has been repeated
almost every five minutes. Doubtless, it proceeds from some Soul in
pain, who wishes to be prayed out of purgatory: But none of us here
dares ask it the question. As for me, were I to see an Apparition, the
fright, I am very certain, would kill me out of hand.'

As She said this, a second groan was heard yet more distinctly. Th