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mind and by the regularity of his life, although he had often incurred their blame by opposing and resisting the discipline and the mystic devotion inculcated by the Fathers of the Company.

Eusebio de Monserrate attempted to bend this lofty will, and to modify the evidently mundane tendencies of the Novice. He failed, as we have seen. Manuel de Moraes resolved to fly the holy house, and he hoped to obtain the parental consent by showing his father that advice and warning were in vain.

The night became stormy. The sunset breeze presently fell to a profound calm. Lightning from the south-east flashed over the horizon, and rose in gerbes and jets, in balls and globes of fire, as though produced by art—an appearance which the electric fluid often assumes in the Highlands of the Brazil. At first a thin warm rain drizzled through the air, but the drops soon became heavier, and the black clouds threatened a torrential downfall.

Grave thoughts haunted the Novice, whom the important step which he had just taken had made more than usually susceptible of impressions from without. How would he be received by his father when the latter came to learn his headstrong plans and projects? Had Padre Eusebio broken the tidings to his parent? What career, what adventures, awaited him now that he no longer belonged to the flock of Saint Ignatius? Would this entire liberty, this plunge into the depths of laical society, a world to him utterly unknown, be really what his fancy painted it? Would it be better suited to his character and ambition than the religious community which had sheltered him to the age of twenty-four?

Descending a steep slope which led to the hill where his father's house stood on the edge of the settlement, he heard loud cries and unusual sounds proceeding from the lower depths of a wretched alley.