Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and sat down by the window.  She rather listened to the conversation, than joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice so musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of Flemming, like a whisper from heaven.

O, how wonderful is the human voice!  It is indeed the organ of the soul!  The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis countenance.  But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the burning bush.  The soul of man is audible, not visible.  A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!

Flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound of that unknown voice.  He felt sure, in his secret heart, that the being from whom it came was beautiful.  His imagination filled up the faint outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the figure stood already in his mind, like Raphael’s beautiful Madonna in the Dresden gallery.  He was never more mistaken in his life.  The voice belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was different from that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted; as he would have seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted.  But in the midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in, andtold him he had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and look at.

Flemming took his leave and departed.  Berkley went with him, to see, he said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep in.

“The chamber is not what I could wish,” said the landlord, as he led them across the street.  “It is in the old cloister.  But to-morrow or next day, you can no doubt have a room at the house.”

The name of the cloister struck Flemming’s imagination pleasantly.  He was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where nuns or friars had slept.  And he said to Berkley;

“So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister.  It already makes me think of a bird’s-nest I once saw on an old tower of Heidelberg castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly served as a spout.  But pray tell me, who was that young lady, with the soft voice?”

“What young lady with the soft voice?”

“The young lady in black, who sat by the window.”

“O, she is the daughter of an English officer, who died not long ago at Naples.  She is passing the summer here with her mother, for her health.”

“What is her name?”

“Ashburton.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“Not in the least; but very intellectual.  A woman of genius, I should say.”

And now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed under an arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which Flemming had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.