oe a fe * 
1828.] The Convent of Catania. 7% 
and rude conceptions, still occupied her fancy with the same theme, 
the same never varied purpose. It was, perhaps, in a midnight hour 
that the dreadful project was formed, which surely must have been the 
last resource of the despairing maid, when, by constant agitation, the 
turbulence of her spirit had become a sort of phrenzy. Then it was 
that her reckless and determined love found itself a way; and by an 
effort more appalling, perhaps, than any that history can furnish, grasped 
at the attainment of its coveted end. Without admitting into her counsel 
one of all those on whose fidelity she might have reposed, the measures 
for this awful expedient were deliberately concerted. She planned, she 
determined, she prepared it in secrecy and alone. 
It was in the mid-watches of the night, that the sisters were aroused 
from their rest by the cry of “ Fire!” from some one hurrying along 
the dormitories. It was Rosina who urged them to fly—it was Rosina 
who discovered the danger—it was Rosina who plotted the conflagration! 
The flames were rushing wildly and high up the outer walls of the 
; building, but she would not yet retire. From cell to cell, she went 
quickly along, calling on all to escape, yet not daring to think of her 
own safety until assured that no living creature could be left in peril. 
She went like a beneficent being, amid the havoc and ruin that she had 
achieved. Not yet would she desert the dangerous place, for she 
shuddered to think there might still be some one whose blood, if shed, 
would fall so surely on herself. At last the huge edifice was deserted 
and voiceless, and secure of the preservation of her innocent associates, 
she passed along the passages and apartments, now almost undistinguish- 
able. As she went, the sheets of fire flashed hotly and fiercely around 
her. The heat became more intense, the hideous enemy approached her, 
and half enveloped in flame she fled precipitately, but too late, from the 
tottering ruin. Overtaken in her flight, she yet had strength and sur- 
viving consciousness to move in the predetermined track, and when the 
morning dawned it showed her lying a disfigured corpse under the 
doorway of her beloved Montalto. 
The fragments of that ruin are thy epitaph, poor maiden. And the 
story which I have here recounted, better told to many a group of 
islanders, not by gossip mothers, but by the general voice of tradition, 
fails not, upon each recital, to honour thy memory with the tears of the 
tender and the compassionate. 
FEVAH. 
