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Who can tell with what delight she would have heard the very

words of the threat repeated in her mental ear, rather than this

continual and fantastic murmur of those very words, sounding with

a pertinacity of which no living voice could have been capable.

It was about a year after this event, that we find Lucy at the

monastery, and under the protection of the signora. The reader

may remember, that after Agnes and the portress had left the

room, the signora and Lucy had entered into conversation alone;

the former continued her questions concerning Don Roderick, with

a fearlessness which filled the mind of Lucy with astonishment,

little supposing that the curiosity of the nuns ever exercised

itself upon such subjects. The opinions which were blended with

these enquiries, were not less strange; she laughed at the dread

which Lucy expressed herself to have of Don Roderick, asking her

if he was not handsome; and surmising that Lucy would have liked

him very well, if it had not been for her preference of Renzo.

When again with her mother, the poor girl expressed her

astonishment at such observations from such a source, but Agnes,

as more experienced, solved the mystery.