 | II. Alice May |  |
2. II.
She was borne to her grave in a beautiful and secluded cemetery of
the convent. The lover was permitted to follow her remains—for by
all he was regarded as a brother. There was a mystery to all the sisterhood
about the dead, and they knew not her living ties.
The grave was closed over her remains—the funeral procession returned
to the convent, and Edward kneeled beside the fresh sod, which
enclosed all he loved. Night at length came on in her solemn silence
and starry beauty. Its influence calmed his troubled spirit, and he arose
and slowly left the spot. He sought the convent, and solicited audience
of the lady superior. To her he revealed his passion—all her history as
interwoven with his own—and then besought her to tell him what had
brought her to that sudden death.
The lady superior was deeply affected by his narrative and his intense
grief; but she replied that she would give him no information.—
That two weeks before, she had arrived at the convent with only a single
black servant, who had instantly turned from the gate and returned
to Alexandria. That she applied for admission in the name of charity,
and the portress opened to her.
`When I beheld her,' said the superior, `as she was conducted before
me, I was struck with her beauty, and also with a look of intense
suffering. She simply asked me to give her asylum from the world and
to conceal from it her refuge. She said she wished to take the veil
and never more to be seen, but pass her life in prayer and preparation
for heaven. She then placed jewels in my hands to a large amount,
which she said had been hers, but which she now gave to the church.
We received her as sister Martha; and from that day I became deeply
interested in her. But she communicated to me nothing of her history
save her name. I watched her closely, for I feared, so deep and silent
was her secret sorrow, that she might lose her reason and take her life.
She spent nearly all her time in the chapel before the altar, and was always
flower, till at length a fever seized her, and three days since she died,
like an infant falling asleep, in my arms. Earth has lost a child but
heaven has gained an angel.
The feelings with which poor Edward listened to this simple narrative
cannot be described. After he had become somewhat composed,
he asked if she had left nothing to lead to the cause which drove her to
the convent. The superior said that she had not, and that all to her
was wrapped in mystery.
`All is indeed mystery inscrutable,' said Edward, as he mentally recurred
to the dreadful end of her father, of her strange letter to him,
of her extraordidary flight and sudden death.
There was, however, a solution to the mystery, which, on his return
to New Orleans, Edward Orr afterwards discovered, which, while it inspired
him with wonder and grief, elevated her, if anything could have
done so, infinitely higher in his affection and esteem. If the reader
has the curiosity to know the solution, he will have it gratified in a
subsequent number.
| II. Alice May | |