 perdition which, as a Jewess, must await her. He poured forth such soul-breathing petitions, for saving grace to be vouchsafed to her, in her hearing, that Marie felt as if she would have given worlds, only to realize the belief for which he prayed; but the more her heart was wrung, the more vividly it seemed that her own faith, the religion of her fathers through a thousand ages, impressed itself upon her mind and heart, rendering it more and more impossible for her to forswear it, even at the very moment that weak humanity longed to do it, and so purchase peace. Naturally so meek and yielding, so peculiarly alive to the voice of sympathy and kindness, it was inexpressibly and harrowingly distressing to be thus compelled to resist both; to think also of all Isabella's gentle, cherishing, and manifested affection; and to know that the only return she demanded, she dared not, might not give. To some dispositions these considerations would have been of no weight whatever; to Marie they were so exquisitely painful, that she could scarcely understand how it was that, feeling them thus acutely, she could yet so clearly, so calmly, reply to Father Denis, bring argument for argument, and never waver in her steadfast adherence to, and belief in her own creed. The very lessons of her youth, which she had thought forgotten in the varied trials which had been her portion since, returned with full—she fancied superhuman—force and clearness to her mind, rendering even the very wish to embrace the Catholic religion, futile. There was a voice within her that would be heard, aye above every human feeling, every strong temptation. She could not drown its clear ringing tones; even where her mental sufferings seemed to cloud and harrow up the brain, to the exclusion of every distinct idea, that voice would breathe its thrilling whisper, telling her it was vain to hope it, she could not be in heart a Catholic; and so she dared not be in words.
A romance is no place for polemical discussion, and we will therefore leave those painful arguments unrecorded. Suffice it, that Marie's intimate acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures in their original tongue—the language of her own people—gave her so decided an advantage over the old monk, that, after nearly three months' trial, he sought his Sovereign, and, with the most touching humility, acknowledged his utter incapacity, for the conversion of Donna Marie, and implored her to dismiss him, and select one more fitted for the task.
Astonished, and bitterly disappointed, Isabella cross-
