thy heart, wanton!" In the same moment, to Master Francis' horror and surprise, he saw the jesuit snatch a dagger from his vest, and bury it in the breast of his female companion, who sunk with a scream at his feet; and then with a fiendish laugh was seeking to make off by a side passage; but the young officer was upon him too quickly. "There, thou abhorred murderer, and damned treacherous villain !—take thy reward!" shouted he as he ran the priest through the body. The thrust seemed to have gone home; for the padre fell on his back and spoke not afterwards, but fixed on his assailant so hateful a glance that the other was glad to turn away his eyes. His men had by this time come up, and looked wondering to see a nun slain by a priest. "She moves!" cried their commander, hastening to the prostrate novice, who gave some evidence of life. "Mayhap the blow the villain gave her was not deadly." She lay on her side, with her long glossy hair streaming over her face, and a stream of blood issuing from a wound a little below her breast that had stained her garments down to her feet. Master Francis gently raised her from the ground, and gazing upon her pallid face, beheld there the idolized features of the mercer's daughter of Eastcheap. CHAPTER IX. Lo! Here the hopeless merchant of this loss, And lips now waxen pale. SHAKSPEARE. Oh, where have I been all this time?-how friended, And none for pity shew me how I wandered? A more unhappy creature. Sure, I am monstrous ! The way to my repentance! Oh, my lord! BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. "DISTURB not yourself, I pray you!" exclaimed Master Francis earnestly, as he bent with an anxious countenance over the form of Joanna. She now reclined upon a pallet in a narrow cell, furnished only with a small table, on which appeared to be a missal or breviary, a rosary, and a crucifix; and he was sitting on a chair close beside her, holding of one of her hands. Her face looked marvellous pale- that settled pallor that betokeneth approaching dissolution; and her eyes, though still turned towards him with all the affectionate tenderness that had once dwelt in them, looked with wonderful languor and uneasiness, and lacked much of that extreme brilliancy by which they had used to be distinguished. "The chirurgeon hath told me I have but a few hours to live," replied the mercer's daughter in a low voice. "And I would fain devote such short time as is allowed me to make my peace with God and my conscience, by a confession which methinks be equally necessary for you to hear as for me to state." "Nay, trouble not yourself about the matter now, I implore you," cried her lover. "I would not have you make yourself miserable at such a time by allusion to what I would willingly wish buried in oblivion." "'Tis imperative," answered the other firmly. "Justice calls for it. I feel within me an influence that maketh it a thing absolute and not to be set aside. I conjure you listen. Hear me, Francis; and hear me with whatsoever patience you can bring to the hearing; for, indeed, the tale I have to tell requireth much endurance of you." Master Francis made no further objection; and with considerable wonder and some curiousness attended to the following narration. “I trace all the evil that hath happened to me to the want of a mother's careful control in my bringing up," said his companion. "She died in my early childhood. I was thus left to the entire care, if care it might be called, of my other parent, who soon shewed how unfit he was for any such duty. Being considered a child of some comeliness I was ever petted by him-the commendation I received of strangers making him proud of my appearance. I heard nought from him and his associates save such flattery as taught me to imagine there could be nothing in the world of so much value as the attractions of the person. Vanity early took possession of my character; and the love of admiration which it engendered grew the stronger the more it was fed. I got but little education deserving of the name, save occasional schooling in the neighbourhood, which when I liked not I gave up, and when I fancied I took to again; but I quickly acquired all sorts of cunning and deceit, from mingling with my father and his chief friends, who looked upon craft as nothing else but cleverness; and my passions, which were exceeding violent even when young, were fostered in every conceivable way by indulgence and harshness equally misapplied. "As I grew towards womanhood, and my features and person began to assume something of that appearance they afterwards acquired, the admiration I excited became greater, and my vanity the more intense. I lacked not suitors: no girl could be more followed. I was the favorite of all the apprentices round about; and many an honest citizen's son vowed he loved me dearer than all the world beside. My father had early impressed me with a distaste for becoming a wife, drawing fearful pictures of the misery, drudgery, and insignificance of such women as married; and then, in more glowing colours, painting the consequence and happiness enjoyed by a girl of wit enough to draw plenty of fine gallants round her all ready to be her slaves, that I thought only of how I might place myself in the enviable situation of the latter. I liked flattery too well to turn away from it, let it come from any, so I encouraged all who spoke after such a fashion as long as it pleased me so to do; and if they became importunate, or pressed me on the subject of marriage, gave them such answers as might hold them on, if I liked not to give them up, or send them away if I cared not for their company. As for studying the feelings of any of them, I never knew of such a thing. Being perfectly selfish myself in these instances, I believed all to be much like me, and cared nothing when I found it otherwise; for when I heard that any worthy youth had taken to heart my behaviour, it moved me not at all: indeed, so utterly heartless have I been, when I had, by the cruel disappointments I put them to, reduced some to be nigh unto death's door, I have boasted to my female |