from my travels: my scholars insisted on celebrating my arrival by an outburst of rejoicing. I yielded to their entreaties and preparations; and now, amid our festivity, I find—alas, what do I find? —your Crescentia dead—that pattern of all grace and virtue dead, and lying before you here in her coffin. Around me I behold but the ghastly paraphernalia of the grave, and you mourning forms who are about to accompany her with tears and breaking hearts to her place of rest." Here he made a sign to his attendants, and addressed a few words to them. They had already all become silent, but now most of them withdrew, in order to allow the funeral to proceed without any interruption. Then came forward the bereaved and trembling mother, and sank down at the feet of the old man, and embraced his knees in a paroxysm of grief. " Alas! wherefore were you not present when my daughter died," cried she, in despair; "your art —your skill—would have saved her. Oh, Pietro! Pietro! you the friend of our family! How can you permit your darling—the apple of your eye, air you used to call hereto be torn from us for ever! Awaken her yet out of her sleep of death. Administer to her some of those miraculous essences which you know how to prepare. Oh, make her but once more to move among us, and to speak to us, and take, as thanks, every thing that we possess!"
"Do not thus give way to despair," answered Pietro d'Abano; "the Lord gave her, and the Lord hath taken her away: let us not be desirous of thwarting his wise determinations. What are we that we should murmur against him? Shall the son of dust, who flutters in the wind, lift up his weak voice to challenge the eternal decrees? No! my friends, bear your affliction as pious parents ought to bear it. Sorrow ought to be the domesticated guest of our souls, as much as joy and pleasure: it also is sent down upon us from above: and He who counts all tears, who tries our hearts and our reins, He knows well what we weak mortals are fitted to endure." More to the same effect was uttered by the wise man of Abano, and he concluded thus: "Carry her," my friends; " carry her whom you have lost to her place of rest, and follow her thither in resigned and God-given humility, so that no impious repinings on your part may disturb her spirit in its mansion of eternal peace."
All present were moved by these words. The father stretched forth his hand to the speaker, with a mute expression that he had given comfort to his soul. The funeral now proceeded on its way; and guided by the masks and other attendants, whose business it was to accompany the corpse, the procession had almost reached the church, when it was suddenly met by a young horseman, who came galloping forwards on a steed covered with foam. "What is the matter?" cried the young man. He threw a glance upon the coffin; and then, with a cry of despair, wheeling round his horse, darted off from the crowd; while his cap, falling from his head in the hurry of the movement, left his long locks floating behind him in the evening breeze. This was the bridegroom who had come to wed the fair Crescentia.
The shades of night now settled down on the mourners and ended the ceremony: and the maiden's corpse was left to repose in the vault of her ancestors.
Chap. II.
The Monk.
As soon as the crowd had dispersed, Alphonso (for that was the name of the young foreigner who had followed the procession and taken part in the mourning) turned to an old priest who tarried alone in prayer over the grave. He longed to know who that majestic old man was, who appeared to him as if endowed with godlike power and supernatural wisdom. Accordingly, he respectfully interrogated the priest concerning him; upon which the latter, standing still, keenly scrutinized his countenance by the light of a lamp which shone upon them from a window hard by. The old priest was a little emaciated figure, whose small pale visage enhanced the fire that burned in his penetrating eyes. His tight-drawn lips trembled as he replied, in a tone of displeasure, —
"What! know you not our world-renowned Pietro d'Abano, a name which is in the mouths of all Paris, London, the Germanic empire, and the whole of Italy? Know you not the
