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fixing her thoughts on some happy recollection of early days, she gradually became more composed, and the mysterious sense of evil began to fade.

A few moments more and she might have slept again, when a quick, pattering noise, which made her shiver, came sweeping across the room. She listened, but all was quiet for some minutes; at length she heard the noise repeated; it seemed to come from behind the bed, and was like the vibration of a bell-wire without any tingling sound. As long as the object of her dread was the intangible phantasm which so frequently comes to cloud the mind, we know not how or wherefore, Mrs. Howard was no more courageous than the generality of her sex; but where there must needs be a visible agency to produce a particular effect, she no longer felt any thing in the shape of fear.

"I must see what this is," she said to herself, "it is absurd to be alarmed about such a trifle as a jarring bell-wire. I dare say I must have had a nightmare when I first woke. Thank Heaven, dear Charles has not been disturbed, he seems so tired!"

She again rose noiselessly in the bed, and leaning forward held back the curtain and looked out into the room. Nothing stirred, but she waited and listened till, tired of gazing upon a blank wall, she was on the point of lying down again when once more she heard the same vibration. Believing that a cat might have got under the bed, she shook the curtain, and the result answered her expectations, though the object that had disturbed her was nothing so formidable as a cat. The nocturnal visitor was a mouse which, alarmed by the rustling of the curtain, darted from under the bed, scampered across the room, and disappeared with the speed of light beneath the crevice of a closet-door in the furthest corner.

"A mouse, after all !" said Mrs. Howard, smiling,-"the old proverb verified. Fears like these have generally no greater foundation than mine." With these words she again, and as she hoped for the last time, endeavoured to settle herself to sleep. The attempt, however, was useless, for the mouse, as if to be revenged on the person who had interfered with its amusement, began with its sharp little teeth to gnaw and scrape inside the closet. Mrs. Howard bore this noise patiently for some time, but at last she could endure it no longer, and getting out of bed she walked gently across the room, and shook the handle of the closet-door. In doing so it appeared to her that something pressed against the door itself, which prevented it from moving freely, and impelled by something stronger even than curiosity, she resolved to see what was inside. But before she did so, she paused.

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Suppose," she thought, "that some one should be concealed within. 1 might be murdered, and Charles, too, before any rescue could come. had better wake him."

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She came back to the bed and laid her hand on her husband's shoulder, whispering his name. He turned on the other side, and uttered one or

two broken sentences, still fast asleep.

"Charles!" again whispered his wife.

"My heart to good-ness," he replied with a strong Welsh accent, dreaming, no doubt, of the landlord of the Golden Harp.

"Dearest, there's something in the closet," she said, in a more impressive tone.

"Roof-beef," ejaculated her husband.

The reply seemed so ridiculous that it made her laugh, and for the moment quieted her apprehensions. She reflected, too, that if any body were inside, the mere attempt on her part to rouse her husband would most likely have brought the person from his place of concealment. She could not, however, overcome a feeling of anxiety to which impatience was shortly added, for once more the mouse began to gnaw the wood. Again, then, she rose and crossed the room, seized the handle of the door and turned it rapidly. She had no need to pull the door, for the stay being removed it opened of itself, and she had barely time to step aside, when a huge black coffin came lumbering with a tremendous crash on the floor.

The noise and Mrs. Howard's shriek of alarm effectually awoke Captain Howard, who jumped up in bed, rubbing his eyes and staring with astonishment at seeing his wife in her night-dress, pale as a ghost, and gazing fixedly on the floor. In an instant he was by her side, supporting her in his arms, and inquiring into the cause of her fears. She answered

by pointing to the coffin.

"How on earth came this thing here?" he said.

"It fell out of the closet when I opened the door. It is dreadfully heavy, I am sure," she whispered, her teeth chattering all the while, "that there is something inside."

"Oh, nonsense, Isabel," returned her husband,-"that's impossible. Who in the world would think of doing such a thing! I shall put it back in the closet, and then, dearest, we will return to bed."

He stooped down and tried to turn the coffin round, for it had fallen on its face. It was heavier than he thought, and he made a violent effort to place it on its side; in doing so he released the lid, which was not nailed down, and to the unspeakable horror of himself and his wife, out rolled the dead body of a man!

There it lay on the floor, a winding-sheet covering the limbs and the greater part of the body, but the ghastly head exposed, the mouth open, the teeth set, and the eyes unclosed; the corpse of one who had died untended, and been hastily thrust aside-for the accommodation of travellers!

"Hurry on your things, dearest," exclaimed Captain Howard, "this is no place for us to stop in any longer. I'll rouse the house though, before I go." Then hastily dragging a quilt from the bed and throwing it over the dead body, he dressed himself as quickly as he could, interrupting himself only at intervals to ring the bell with all his might.

There was noise enough made to have awakened the seven sleepers, but Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Evans, and their handmaiden, Peggy, slept sounder than those persecuted Christians, and for a very good reason.

They had calculated on the night passing by without any discovery being made of the guest in the closet; he had died suddenly the morning before, and they felt assured would not stir of himself; the thought of a disturbative mouse never entered into their scheme. But they had heard the falling coffin, and all that followed,-were fully alive to the fact that Captain Howard was ringing the bell hard enough to tear it down, and, on that account, they quietly resolved to sleep on and let things take their course. 66 My heart to good-ness," said Mr. Thomas Evans to his spouse, "the dead officer will not meddle with the living one, he had much better keep quiet."

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Yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Evans, and so they lay still.

Finding that it was useless to expect any one to appear, Captain Howard came to the resolution of at once leaving the defunct tenant in possession of the chamber, and making the best of his way not only out of the Golden Harp, but the town of Cardigan into the bargain. Had he known the intricacies of the house he would assuredly have roused Mr. and Mrs. Evans (who, by-the-by, had selected for their sleeping apartment some remoter place than the bar), but as his knowledge of the mansion was limited to the way to the street-door, he proceeded down stairs, carrying the sac de nuit and dressing-case, and followed by his pale and trembling wife.

The morning was just breaking when they got into the street, and Captain Howard led the way to the carriage, which was standing where he had left it the night before. He placed his wife inside, disposed of their light baggage, and then proceeded to the stable. The ostler was still lying in the corner, in the same drunken lethargy in which Captain Howard found him. To awaken him was a fruitless endeavour, so, as he had been his own groom on his arrival, he performed the same office on his departure.

A quarter of an hour sufficed for this purpose, and then, without a word of adieu, which indeed would have been thrown away, as there was not a human being visible, he said one or two cheering words to Mrs. Howard, and giving his horses their heads set off at a brisk trot in the direction of Aberystwith.

There is only one thing more to add to this perfectly true story, which is this:

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Early on the following morning, as Captain and Mrs. Howard were seated at breakfast at the Marine Hotel, at Aberyswith, a stranger was announced. On being shown in, a wild, staring Welshman presented himself. "You are the gentlemans," said he, "who stopped at Mrs. Evans's at the Golden Harp, in Cardigan?"

"I am," replied Captain Howard; "and, pray, who are you?" "I am a purpose messenger," replied the stranger, "and my name is Davvyd Jones!"

"Indeed!" returned Howard," and what may you happen to want with me?"

"I have come, sir, from Mrs. Evans; she has sent you her little bill for supper and a night's lodging, with food and fodder for your horses. I have come all the way myself on foot, sir,-forty miles, I assure you,—to bring the money to her. Yes, indeed, sir."

"Well, Davy Jones," replied Captain Howard, "if Mrs. Evans is so very anxious for the amount of her bill, tell her when you see her that she may go to your namesake and ask him for it. That will do,-you need not stay any longer. Here, waiter, show this fellow out; and, harkee, here are a couple of sovereigns, desire the landlord to divide them amongst some of the most deserving of the poor people in this place. That is the way, Mr. David Jones, that I pay for a night's lodging, when there happens to be a dead body in the room."

We never heard that Mrs. Evans made a second application for her bill; nor did Captain Howard content himself again with a bed-room in Wales without first looking into the closet.

THE SECRET PLAN OF THE JESUITS.*

THE Abbate Leone, according to all accounts, a respectable and trustworthy person, was induced, at the age of nineteen, when pursuing his studies for the church, to join the Jesuits through the exhortations of a certain curé, by name Luigi Vercelli. His appointment was obtained through Father Roothaan, rector of a College of the Society of Jesus at Turin, and he repaired, under the same guidance, to Cheiri, there to lay, in the novitiate, "the solid foundations of a truly religious and Jesuitical life."

The most profound silence, rarely interrupted even by whispers, reigned in this abode. The "guardian angel," as the father attached to each novice is called, used to close the shutters the more readily to initiate the novice in the austere exercises of Saint Ignatius, and the gloomy mysteries of other Jesuit saints. The probation directs itself in what concerns the novice to the inculcation of piety and obedience, in that which concerns the teacher to acquiring an intimate knowledge of the disposition and character of his pupil. To this effect, confession in a Jesuit College is made to comprise an avowal of every affection of the heart, every sentiment of the mind, and even of dreams.

We have heard and read a great deal of the various means by which blind obedience, the plummet-line always kept in hand by the general of the Jesuits, is brought about, and all earthly affections-all traces of "the old man" are finally absorbed in Jesuitism; but the young abbate tells us how the "grotesque" in religion is also made of avail with minds so constituted as to render such means acceptable, for even the miracles of all sorts with which the heads of the novices are filled are all invented in order to rear upon supernatural bases a structure of absolute and blind obedience.

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Father Saetti, knocking at my door one morning, according to his custom, I did not immediately open it. Why this delay?" he asked me. I replied that I could not open the door sooner. He then reminded me that, in all things, the most prompt obedience was the most perfect; that in obeying God we must make every sacrifice, even that of a moment of time. "One of the brethren," he continued, "was occupied in writing, when some one knocked at his door. He had begun to make an o, but he did not stay to finish it. He opened the door, and on returning to his seat, he found the o completed, and all in gold! Thus you see how God rewards him who is obedient." I received this story with a burst of laughter, at which he appeared much scandalised. "What!" he exclaimed, with an alarmed face, "do you not believe in miracles?" "Most certainly I do," replied I; "but this one is only fit to tell to old women."

The manner in which the Abbate Leone relates that, pending his probation, he became acquainted with the secret plan of the Jesuits is the most extraordinary feature of his revelations. Too intense application to the subjects of a gloomy devotion, and the utter solitude of the probatoria, had broken down his spirits and his health. He asked permission to walk for a few moments in the garden, and his "guardian angel" referred him to the rector. Two days afterwards, tempted by the fine weather, he repaired for that purpose to the rector's apartment, the door of which he found open, although the rector was absent. On one side

The Jesuit Conspiracy. The Secret Plan of the Order. Detected and Revealed by the Abbate Leone. With a Preface by M. Victǝr Considérant. Chapman and Hall.

was a small table covered with bottles and glasses, and beyond that a small library, into which the abbate sauntered. Taking a volume from the shelves, he was surprised to find a second row of books behind the first, and still more so on removing one of them, to find a third.

What was my astonishment when this title met my gaze, "CONFESSIONS OF THE NOVICES!" The side edges of the book were marked with the letters of the alphabet. Could I do less than seek for the initial of my own name?

The first pages, written, probably, a few days after my arrival, contained a rough sketch of my character. I was utterly confounded. I recognised my successive confessions, each condensed into a few lines. So clear and accurate was the appreciation given of my temperament, my faculties, my affections, my weakness and my strength, that I saw before my eyes a complete revelation of my own nature. What surprised me above all was the conciseness and energy of the expressions employed to sum up the characteristics of my whole being. The favourite images I found in this depository of outpourings of all sorts from the heart of ingenuous youth, were borrowed from the materials used in building-hard, fragile, malleable, coarse, precious, necessary, accessory; a sort of figurative language which has kept fast hold on my memory.

Not an atom of what the novice had, as a matter of conscience, revealed to his "guardian angel" was omitted in this register. He found his enthusiasm and imagination recommended, but his want of taste for the "grotesque" in religion was put down as showing that he would spoil all, if set to work on the clumsier parts of the Jesuitical edifice. Not only did the disobedient novice examine the secrets of his own conscience, but he also apparently, in all tranquillity, took a peep at another set of volumes, which contained the confessions of strangers, and wherein he found a collection of notes upon persons of every class, of every age, rich men, bachelors, &c. Here again were circumstantial details-propensities, fortune, family, relations, vices and virtues, together with such anecdotes as were calculated to characterise the personages. It is from such a Register of Confessions, that the Jesuit can not only furnish himself in a few hours with the experience acquired by his colleagues, but this artifice endows him with the infallible power of surprising, confounding, and subjugating the penitents who knelt beside him.

The abbate was interrupted in his researches by the sound of footsteps. The rector was returning with a number of Jesuit fathers from conducting the Marquis de Saluces to his carriage, and they now sat down in solemn conclave to discuss the general interests and the plan of action by which the Society was then to be guided. This, it is to be observed, was at a period when the fall of Napoleon, and the restoration of the old crowned heads of Europe, had opened new prospects to the Society. The young abbate, at first perplexed and bewildered at his situation; then terrified in the extreme; so far recovered himself in a very brief space of time as to sit down at a writing-table and stenograph the proceedings of the Fathers. The meeting over, he was also so favoured by chance, as to have been able to make his escape unobserved to the chapel, and finally, satisfied with having arrived by a very brief road at the very height of Jesuitical learning and plotting, he lost no time in bringing his probation to a close, by withdrawing himself at once and for ever from the exercises of St. Ignatius.

Taken as a whole, these revelations thus obtained contain little that is There is the same tedious and pompous verbiage in which the

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