‘Father! Father! ‘tis that which causes my Torment! Happy had it been for me, had my life been passed among the vicious and abandoned! Had I never heard pronounced the name of Virtue! ‘Tis my unbounded adoration of religion; ‘Tis my soul’s exquisite sensibility of the beauty of fair and good, that loads me with shame! that hurries me to perdition! Oh! that I had never seen these Abbey walls!’
‘How, Rosario? When we last conversed, you spoke in a different tone. Is my friendship then become of such little consequence? Had you never seen these Abbey walls, you never had seen me: Can that really be your wish?’
‘Had never seen you?’ repeated the Novice, starting from the Bank, and grasping the Friar’s hand with a frantic air; ‘You? You? Would to God, that lightning had blasted them, before y
