Ah, Marcella !' good and com. passionate Marcella! added she, with a vivacity which imparted to her charming figure an expression I had never before remarked, • let us return together by the way that Providence has perhaps traċed out for my deliverance from this dreadful prison. Do you take your lantern, and let us explore an issue from this hated place, and then, then said she, pressing my hand to her boson, 'you may let your grateful prisoner escape !' "I contemplated her with the most earnest emotion.-' Doubt not,' I exclaimed, embracing her, of every assistance I can render you; would to heaven I could realize the promise I have so often made of assuaging your griefs though at the expence of my existence !' the least degree, the only moment of happiness she had experienced since her arrival in this abode of sorrow and despair. Let us begin, said I, smiling. by examining the path you have discovered, we will afterwards regulate our conduct by the ob servations we shall make. Believe me, my dear Virginia, never could I separate myself from you without the most heartfelt regret; but entrust to my prudence the care of directing the hazardous enterprise in which you are about to engage. 'Heavens!' exclaimed Virginia,tempt till the following night. what dreadful ideas do your words excite! Doubtless the monsters would wreak their utmost vengeance on you, should you on my account put in practice the most sublime precepts of our holy religion. No, Marcella, I will not leave you here, abandoned to their eruel vengeance; you company my flight; we will both seek an assylum in the Monastery of my respectable friend, Signora Vizzani Say, ah! say that you will go with me!' added she, caressing me. shall ac • It would have been too severe a trial for me to have damped, in "When I was alone, and reflected on what had passed, I at first experienced an emotion of terror. If I let Virginia escape,' thought I, what will bacome of her? Alone, without money, without resource, wandering throughthe country without the means of subsistence, or a friend to relieve her! It is true, I need be under no apprehensions of her being pursued, for, during the three years I have been appointed to guard her in the subterraneous dungeon, no one but myself has ever entered it. But the idea of the oath the Abbess had forced me to take, tormented me. It was on peril of eternal damnation that I was responsible for Virginia. I had sworn, and I shuddered, in spite of myself, at the idea of perjury. I could not submit my scruples even to the tribunal of penitence, for my Confessor was particularly included among the number of those whom I was never to communicate the fatal secret. Dreadfully agitated by these reflections, and not knowing what sourse to take, I fell on my knees, and prayed to Providence to direct me. A voice at that moment secretly whispered to me that I could not be culpable in delevering an unfortunate victim from her sufferings; that voice seemed to me to proceed from Heaven. I determined to obey its dictates, and I returned the next night to Virgi nia, with the firm intention of restoring her to liberty. "When I entered her dungeon, she had just finished dressing her self; she had quitted the robe of our Order, and had arrayed herself in white. I recollected having brought her these cloths long before, at her urgent request. Her hair was concealed beneath a sort of a night-cap, and she re sembled in her dress one of the woman of the adjacent country; but the dazzling beauty of her features, and her noble and elegant manner, sufficiently announced that her modest and lowly apparel was only a disguise. I admired the ingenuity with which she had altered the dress I had brought her, and so peculiarly adapted it to conceal her flight and I felicitated her upon her happy invention. "Here is your disguise, Marcella,' said she, presenting me a bundle, from which she drew a dress exactly similar to her own; 'put it on immediately, and let us depart.’ "I had a great deal of difficulty in making her sensible of the danger she ran by my accompanying her in her flight-They will not fail,' said I, to follow our traces. Depart alone, dear Sister, and I promise to join you at the Gonvent of Signora Vizzani as soon as I shall be able to do so without any risk." She embraced me with tears in her eyes, lavished on me the most affectionate marks of her gratitude, and was only tranquilized by the renewal of my promise to fly from the vengeance that awaited me if it should be discovered. She was nolonger in the subterraneous dungeon. "I had furnished my basket with a double store of provisions; I undertook to carry it, while Virginia walked before me with the antern. We arrived at the entrance of the subterraneous passage, and I felt the cold air rush through the aperture she had before mentioned to me : its effect was uch, I could scarce proceed; but Virginia, to whom the hope of liberty imparted a degree of supernatural activity, took me by the hand, and drew me after her. When we had arrived at the spot where her lights had been extinguished, we had to struggle against the same gust of wind, which whistled by us, and shook the stones around us in a manner sufficient to have dismayed hearts more courageous than our's were. I stopped, and raising the lantern above my head, the better to discover the path before us, perceived that the vault became considerably narrower at its extremity. We continued cautiously advancing; but, alas! when we had reached the spot where Virginia hoped to find an opening towards the country, it was so small as scarcely to admit our arms. Virginia threw herself down, and, crawling on her knees, endeavoured to force her way through :-after an infinite deal of fatigue and trouble, she removed a large stone which the damp had before loosened. I stooped at the same time, and held out the lantern; we each uttered a cry of despair at observing that this issue, the object of our most ardent desires, looked towards an immense reservoir of water formed by several cascades, the murmuring noise of which we distinctly heard, The unfortunate Virginia, pale, and abondoned to despair, attempted to rise, but she was unable to support herself. I received her in my arms, and we remain : "Heaven!' interrupted she, with an accent of despair that made me shudder, 'can Heaven ordain the punishment of the innocent? What have I done to be rendered thus wretched and unhappy? What barbarous decree of Providence Condem.ns me thus to linger out my wretched life in this hateful dungeon, secluded from the light of Heaven?-No, no, it is not, it cannot be Heaven-it is Hell that presides over my destiny.' 'I took her by the hand, and led her gently back.by the same path we had before trod with very different sensations. “Virginia, preserved silence; her eyes were expressive of the gloomy thoughts that rent her soul, and her limbs trembled under her. When we had arrived near the aperture adjoined the wall, I examined it with attention, and entertained not the smallest doubt of its leading towards the country; it was extremely narrow, and the wall with which it was connected, strenthened by several iron bolts, seemed not likely to yield to the weak efforts we could make to force a passage on that side. "I conducted Virginia to her chamber'; she still preserved a profound silence, and received my caresses with a degree of uncon cern which gave me extreme uneasiness She was soon seized with an ague.' I forced her to bed; but it was not long before I perceived she was attacked by a violent fever. I would have given the world to have remained with her; but day was on the point of breaking, and I was obliged to leave her. A secret impulse urged me several times to return to her dungeon after I had quitted it. I entreated Virginia to make use of an invigorating cordial which I placed by her bedside; and I again bathed her countenance with my tears. The unfortunate victim at length assured of the grief 1 experienced, clasped my hand, pressed it to her lips, and regarded me with a degree of expression in which was portrayed all that tender attachment she had ever evince ed towards me. "The next day I flew to her as early as possible ;-her fever had diminished, and I found her kneeling before the crucifix, placed against the wall of her chamber. Join your prayers to mine, dear Marcella,' said she, aid me to obtain the pardon of Heaven for the guilty murmurs I suffered to escape me yesterday,' 'I pressed her to my bosom; we wept together; and I at length succeeded, by my tender and consolatory attentions, in reconciling her to herself. 'From that day Virginia, calm and resigned, appeared like an angel divested of all earthly incumbrance, and ready to take her flight to the bosom of the Divinity. Eugenio was the constant theme of her discourse. Daily she prayed to her God not to relieve her from the griefs and regrets which the remembrence, of her unhappy loverperpetually excited, but to grant her courage to bear them with resignation. 'May Heaven hear her pray. ers! May its mercy put a period to her sad existence! "The sincere friendship by which I am actuated towards her, would not allow me to murmur at her loss; on the contrary, I should rejoice at the assurance she was in the blessed and happy abode, where I hope to meet her, never more to be separated." (To be Continued) SELECTED. For the Lady's Miscellany A True Story. LOUISA to EMMA, HER FRIEND IN THE EAST-INDIES. On the arch'd windows thus, that proudly grace An high majestics Temple's awful.. face, When pours the setting sun its darting rays, An hundred solar orbs appear to blaze; Peace is the pale-ey'd sister of the Cell," But when th' incumbent shades of the cell of DEATH-where mis lowering night Curtain the scource of this illusive light, Its evanescent fires no more remain, But horrors gather round the dark. en'd fane The lofty turrets, desolately grand, In dreary state, and lonely silence stand; Thro' the dim ailes pale spectres seem to fleet, And hollow groans the whispering Tho' time, for woes like thine, ad walls repeat. mits no cure, Yet learn its hardest lesson, to en dure! Not long shall life her torturing sense impart Of the barb'd shaft, that rankles in thy heart, Thou shalt not need to stain thy spotless Soul, Nor want th' ensanguin'd knife, th' evenom'd bowl; Thy Soul's befov'd, by vain ambi tion fire', Detested impotence of flatter'd Deaf, as the Grave, to all that once charms, That could not bind my wanderer to my arms! inspired, To Love's soft voice, to Honor's awful plea, Ah what avail'd your beauties, Lives to another!-and is lost to Like opening flow'rs, that deck That Alings on the cold gale its the desart glade, mournful knell ! Fair to no purpose, flater'd graces The solemn pause, the loud re - One healing draught and all Calling the pale Corse to its dark |