of the Spaniards annoying them with fire-arms in the meanwhile.

Some houses were so offensive in this way that the lord general was obliged to detach small parties of his men under commanders of most approved courage to take them by assault; and to one which seemed to be a church or religious house of some kind he sent Master Francis against, with a force of fifty men, whilst he sought to make his way to the market-place. The young commander, after an obstinate opposition, carried the place by assault, which proved to be a nunnery; for, upon his forcible entrance at the head of his men, he noticed the nuns flying before him, screaming and calling on the saints for assistance. Taking care that none such should be hurt, he followed on briskly till he came to the cloisters, and, greatly to his surprise, perceived at some little distance from him a man in the habit of an ecclesiastic dragging along by the hair of her head a female in the dress of a novice.

"Turn, villain!" cried Master Francis, hurrying towards him with his sword drawn. "Thou art but a coward to use a woman so. Let go thy hold or I will cut thee to the chine."

"Ha!" exclaimed the man turning towards him the well known face of the Padre Bartolomé, looking more malignant than ever he had known it.

"Art thou here, accursed heretic! Then this to thy heart, wanton!" In the same moment, to Master Francis's 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.

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"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 idolised features of the mercer's daughter of Eastcheap.

CHAPTER IX.

Lo! Here the hopeless merchant of this loss,
With head inclined, and voice dammed up with woes,
With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,

And lips now waxen pale.

SHAKSPEARE.

Oh, where have I been all this time?-how friended,
That I should lose myself thus desperately,

And none for pity show me how I wandered!
There is not in the compass of the light

A more unhappy creature. Sure, I am monstrous!
For I have done those follies, those mad mischiefs,
Would dare a woman. Oh, my loaden soul!
Be not so cruel to me; choke not up

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 that 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."

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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."

"Justice

"'Tis imperative," answered the other firmly. 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 showed 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 naught 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 the 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 favourite 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 of them to bẹ nigh unto death's door, I have boasted to my female confidante of the time that so many were dying for me. In fact, I looked upon such things as great triumphs that showed the power of my beauty.

"That you must sufficiently despise me for conduct so despicable I feel assured. In truth, I do despise myself most heartily; and the only excuse I can bring forward in extenuation of such baseness is, that it was taught me, and encouraged by those who ought to have inculcated in me honester principles. I may add, so little seemed my father to care for my morals, that he scrupled not in allowing me to associate with women living in great disrepute, if they happened to be good customers to him; and would have such to dwell with him in the house with as little shame or compunction. In fact, he cared for nothing save the increasing of his gains, so that he might have such companions as he chose, and live in continual feasting and jollity. It so happened that the selfishness which made me so regardless of the feelings of others whilst I could gratify my own vanity, secured me from any thing like moral danger. I knew not any thing that did deserve the name of love-whatever I might have professed-so that the ardour of the most devoted lover might with as much profit have been cast on a stone as on me.

"The admiration of apprentices and young citizens soon ceased to content me. Many brave gallants and young noblemen coming to my father's shop, and getting sight of me, liked me, or professed to like me, with so monstrous an affection, that they were ever besieging me with the sweetest of flatteries; and my father finding his advantage init, afforded them every facility for seeing me when any of them had a mind. The report of my comeliness brought others; and all, to get my father's assistance towards having speech with me, had dealings with him, whereby he got great gains. Here then, was I, a woman-young, and, by report, lovely, exposed to all the arts of some of the most dissolute men about the court. They tempted me with costly presents-they strove to cajole me with the most delusive speeches; but I had too much cunning not to perceive their designs; and though it did delight my vanity famously to be so admired by so many brave gallants, and my selfishness allowed me to take freely what they freely gave, to none did I give better encouragement than an occasional caress- -the which I had ever been taught to consider as a thing of no sort of moment.

"This continued till I knew you, and then my whole being seemed changed of a sudden-the barren rock seemed struck by some holy hand, and there gushed forth a stream of the purest and sweetest feeling. Before, every thing was for my. self-now, every thing was for you. Although the love of admiration was implanted too deeply in my disposition to be readily eradicated, I made it subservient to the most generous purposes. I learned how you were situated with your miserly kinsman-I noticed your inability to supply that thirst for information which distinguished you. Love not only taught me liberality, but instructed me to use such delicacy in the application of it, as enabled me to supply all your wants after such a fashion as could be least objectionable to one of so modest and retiring a nature as I found you to be. You were then but a mere youth, and I a woman of some six or seven years your senior; the delight I felt in affording you facilities for improving yourself in study, and the gratification that arose in me as I observed the rapid progress of your mental faculties in consequence, I am altogether unable to express ; but the affection I felt was of so different a sort from any thing I have heard or read of, that I cannot fancy such was ever felt before.

"The fact was, you seemed so entirely thrown on my pro