Shall I confess my surprise, my disappointment! It was no other than an image of the blessed Virgin, decked out in all the gorgeous splendor which Catholic piety bestows upon her saints.

The features, which the imperfect light and my more imperfect faculties had endowed with an expression of calm, angelic beauty, were, to my waking senses, but the cold and barren mockery of loveliness; the eyes, which my excited brain gifted with looks of tenderness and pity, stared with no speculation in them; yet contrasting my feelings of the night before, full as they were of, their deceptions, with my now waking thoughts, I longed once more for that delusion which threw a dreamy pleasure over me, and subdued the stormy passions of my soul into rest and repose.
"Who knows," thought I, "but he who kneels yonder feels now as I did then?
Who can tell how little the cold, unmeaning reality before him resembles the spiritualized creation the fervor of his love and the ardor of his devotion may have placed upon that altar?
Who can limit or bound the depth of that adoration for an object whose attributes appeal not only to every sentiment of the heart, but also to every sense of the brain?
I fancy that I can picture to myself how these tinselled relics, these tasteless waxworks, changed by the magic of devotion and of dread, become to the humble worshipper images of loveliness and beauty.

The dim religious light; the reverberating footsteps echoed along those solemn aisles; the vaulted arches, into whose misty heights the sacred incense floats upward, while the deep organ is pealing its notes of praise or prayer,--these are no slight accessories to all the pomp and grandeur of a church whose forms and ceremonial, unchanged for ages and hallowed by a thousand associations, appeal to the mind of the humblest peasant or the proudest noble by all the weaknesses as by all the more favored features of our nature." How long I might have continued to meditate in this strain I know not, when a muttered observation from Mike turned the whole current of my thoughts.
His devotion over, he had seated himself upon the steps of the altar, and appeared to be resolving some doubts within himself concerning his late pious duties.
"Masses is dearer here than in Galway.

Father Rush would be well pleased at two-and-sixpence for what I paid three doubloons for, this morning.
And sure it's droll enough.

How expensive an amusement it is to kill the French! Here's half a dollar I gave for the soul of a cuirassier that I kilt yesterday, and nearly twice as much for an artilleryman I cut down at the guns; and because the villain swore like a heythen, Father Pedro told me he'd cost more nor if he died like a decent man." At these words he turned suddenly round towards the Virgin, and crossing himself devoutly, added,-- And sure it's yourself knows if it's fair to make me pay for devils that don't know their duties; and after all, if you don't understand English nor Irish, I've been wasting my time here this two hours." "I say, Mike, how's my friend the major! How's Major O'Shaughnessy ?" "Charmingly, sir.