discipline of the convent too strict to allow of this. I composed myself again, but was hardly asleep, when I was again awoke by something that touched me. I started up again; a soft voice near me said in whispers, “Compose yourself; I am your friend.”—“My friend? Have I one?—but why visit me at this hour?”—“It is the only hour at which I am permitted to visit you.”—“But who are you, then?”—“One whom these walls can never exclude. One to whom, if you devote yourself, you may expect services beyond the power of man.”—There was something frightful in these words. I cried out, “Is it the enemy of souls that is tempting me?” As I uttered these words, a monk rushed in from the passage, (where he had been evidently waiting, for his dress was on). He exclaimed, “What is the matter? You have alarmed me by your cries,—you pronounced the name of the infernal spirit,—what have you seen? what is it you fear?” I recovered myself, and said, “I have seen or heard nothing extraordinary. I have had frightful dreams, that is all. Ah! Brother St Joseph, no wonder, after passing such days, my nights should be disturbed.”

——

“The monk retired, and the next day passed as usual; but at night the same whispering sounds awoke me again. The preceding night these sounds had only startled me; they now alarmed me. In the darkness of night, and the solitude of my cell, this repeated visitation overcame my spirits. I began almost to admit the idea that I was exposed to the assaults of the enemy of man. I repeated a prayer, but the whisper, which seemed close to my ear, still continued. It said, “Listen,—listen to me, and be happy. Renounce your vows, place yourself under my protection, and you shall have no cause to complain of the exchange. Rise from your bed, trample on the crucifix which you will find at the foot of it, spit on the picture of the Virgin that lies beside it, and——” At these words I could not suppress a cry of horror. The voice ceased in a moment, and the same monk, who occupied the cell next to mine, rushed in with the same exclamations as on the preceding night; and, as he entered my cell, the light in his hand shewed a crucifix, and a picture of the blessed Virgin, placed at the foot of my bed. I had sprung up when the monk entered my cell; I saw them, and recognized them to be the very crucifix and picture of the Virgin which had been taken from my cell. All the hypocritical outcries of the monk, at the disturbance I had again caused him, could not efface the impression which this slight circumstance made on me. I believed, and not without reason, they had been left there by the hands of some human tempter. I started, awake to this horrible imposition, and 

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