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He could remember that first he had heard a caller say to Clytie of Miss Alvira, "Why, they do say the poor thing has to go down those back stairs and actually split her own kindlings with that healthy loafer setting around in the good clothes she buys him, in the back room of that drug-store from morning till night. And what's worse, he's been seen with that eldest "
In the front there was a flower garden, small but charmingly pretty; the doors and windows were surrounded with a woodbine creeper that gave an air of comfort to the little dwelling. The door was ever closed. Few were seen to pass in and out, and no noise ever betrayed the presence of its inmates. Here for many years our young penitent Alvira passed a holy and solitary life.
Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, "Hold!, hold!" Macbeth. Poor Alvira! Her morning dawned after a restless, sleepless night. Phantoms of terror haunted her couch. The agonies of anticipated remorse had cast a withering shadow on her thoughts.
The King confirmed her position of captain, and sent her the iron and golden crosses of honor, only given to the bravest of the brave in those days of strife and warfare. But vanity of vanities, and all is vanity! Let us raise the veil of deception that shrouds the emptiness of human joy. Alvira has now gratified her heart's desires in everything she could have under the sun.
Let us come to the sequel of this extraordinary history; but first we must introduce our readers to a new character a great and holy man, destined by Providence to save Alvira, and give the most interesting and most remarkable chapter in this romance of real life. Alvira's Confession.
Aloysia, whose sense of delicacy was still as tender as the sensitive plant yielding to human touch, pleaded in tears for a return to the simple ways of girlhood, to the life and society more congenial to their habits and more in keeping with the laws of God and nature. Alvira had yielded for a moment.
Could she have misunderstood the prophetic voice of her sainted Father Francis, who knew the secrets of God in her behalf? But no; the favor will come the last crowning, ineffable favor will come; it is at hand. Alvira has opened her eyes. She calls her brother near; with a smile, the sweetest that ever lit up those expressive features, she told him what the favor would be.
Alvira opens her soul to the impulses of grace, but in dangerous and guilty procrastination she passes through some startling vicissitudes before the Almighty, impatient as it were for her love, draws her to him by one of the most touching miracles recorded in the wonders of hagiology.
These clouds moved rapidly before her astonished gaze, occasionally she saw through their rents a tinge of red flame that glowed in the fleecy mist like the crimson linings of sunset. The brighter clouds gradually faded; the flames became fiercer and more distinct; they seemed to leap in fury around the altar and sanctuary. Alvira struggled in doubt for a moment.
The mother came rushing from her hiding-place to claim the infant, and when she received it into her embrace the man of God raised his index finger in the act of warning, and with a sweet, forgiving smile on his countenance, said to the young mother: "My child, don't put any more dead babies in my confessional." Alvira had to undergo a severe trial in the absence of Father Francis.
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