open one of the saddest chapters of life which I had ever heard.

'You do not know that I am going into a convent?' she said; then,
without waiting for an answer, she continued: 'This is the last month
of my worldly life. In four weeks, I shall have put on the white robe
of the novitiate, and in due course I trust to be dead for ever to
this earthly life.'

A heavy, thick, choking sensation in my throat, and a burning pain
within my eyeballs, warned me to keep silence. My voice would have
betrayed me.

'When I was seventeen,' continued Julia, 'I was engaged to my cousin.
We had been brought up together from childhood, and we loved each
other perfectly. You must not think, because I speak so calmly now,
that I have not suffered in the past. It is only by the grace of
resignation and of religion, that I have been brought to my present
condition of spiritual peace. I am now five-and-twenty--next week I
shall be six-and-twenty: that is just nine years since I was first
engaged to Laurence. He was not rich enough, and indeed he was far too
young, to marry, for he was only a year older than myself; and if he
had had the largest possible amount of income, we could certainly not
have married for three years. My father never cordially approved of
the engagement, though he did not oppose it. Laurence was taken
partner into a large concern here, and a heavy weight of business was
immediately laid on him. Youthful as he was, he was made the sole and
almost irresponsible agent in a house which counted its capital by
millions, and through which gold flowed like water. For some time, he
went on well--to a marvel well. He was punctual, vigilant, careful;
but the responsibility was too much for the poor boy: the praises he