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expected to be addressed in the days of which I am speaking. I was not informed, of course, of this visit of my friend, but Pauline and I very soon discovered its effects, and felicitated ourselves upon it, in a degree proportionate to the risk we had run to bring these effects about.

One morning, during the hour set aside for work and domestic duties, as Pauline and I were passing along the gallery to our cells, we met the sister Clotilde, the very same who had seen and reported the strange appearance in the burying-ground; and she had her eyes and mouth open, as if she had actually come from beholding another prodigy as astonishing as that of a human being flying over a cemetière.

“Oh, Sister Angelique! Sister Pauline!" she said, "Madame sent me to her room just now, I declare to Saint Ursula I have forgotten what for, and there, in the little chamber over the porch, which faces the cimetière, who do you think is lodged but Sister Clarice. I saw la Mère Ursule go in to her, to take her her breakfast, and it was all the same as we have; and I heard her speak, and thank the mother, and I came behind the mother, and saw her with my own very eyes; and there she is; and so what they say is all false."

"What do they say," asked Pauline, at the same time giving my hand a squeeze which at any other time would have made me shriek.

"What do they say?" repeated Clotilde; "why, that she was chained up in a dungeon because of the evil spirit; being so furious that nobody could come near her. It was la Mère Aymée who told us that it was always done so with the possessed: and she says more -she says that she once her very self saw a sister so bad that they were forced to chain her to a stone pillar in a cell under the house. She was called Agnace," she said, "and it was as terrible to look at her as if she had been the foul fiend himself."

"How long ago was this?" asked Pauline, shuddering and looking at me.

"La Mère Aymée can't say," replied Clotilde," and la Mère Ursule, who could say if she would, will not tell. She says it is all a dream of la Mère Aymée's, and she rated her well for talking of such things. She says the old sister has grown childish, and does not know what she talks about. But, Jesu Maria! now

suppose the devil should take Sister Clarice again, and she should break loose: the Holy Mother preserve us! what would become of us all!"

She was interrupted in this place by la Mère Ursule, who, coming out of the superieure's apartments, inquired what was the matter.

"If Sister Clarice should break out again, now you have brought her up into that cell, mother, what would become of us all ?" asked Clotilde.

"Brought her up again?" repeated the mother; "what do you mean?"

"Out of the dungeon," said Clotilde.

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"The dungeon, you fool!" replied the mother; why she has been where she now is ever since you saw her last-under the tender care of our excellent superieure."

Could Pauline's eyes have transfixed a heart, I would not have given much for the life of the hypocritical mother at that instant. However, the old nun was not easy under the eye-beam which was shot against her; addressing my friend, she said, “ What do you mean to infer by that glance, daughter?-But I advise you to beware, and not meddle with matters in which you have no concern. In my younger days, a glance like that would have cost me at least a week's penance." "Thank God!" said Pauline; and then stopped short. "For what?" asked the mother.

"For all his goodness," returned my friend.

"Amen!" repeated the mother, giving her at the same time a searching look. "But take care," she added, "there are more ears and eyes in this house than you may be aware of."

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Agnace!" muttered Pauline; but I dragged her away, and I think that the mother did not hear this last word.

Our minds were, however, greatly relieved respecting Clarice, by this communication of Clotilde. She had light, and air, and food, and we ourselves had little more. And not being perfectly assured that she did not merit some degree of displeasure, though we could not have endured the idea of her being treated with actual cruelty, we endeavoured to set our minds at rest respecting her, and to accommodate ourselves as well as we might to our situation, of which the monotony again appeared the greater and the more irksome, after the excitement occasioned by the late events.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PESTILENCE.

BUT it was not ordained that things should long remain as they were with us. A storm was approaching, and the commencement of the troubles of our house was very remarkable.

La Mère Ursule had a great-niece, the only living descendant of an unfortunate sister. This little girl, called Ella Rosa, had lost her mother, who died at St. Siffren at her birth; and the father, being a reprobate person, and not forthcoming at the time, la Mère Ursule, with the approbation of the superieure, had adopted the baby, and placed her under the charge of a peasant whose cottage was somewhere near at hand among the hills. It was determined that this little one should be taken into the house, as soon as she could be taught to behave herself with that discretion necessary in such an establishment; and, young as she was, she was considered as a pretendante for the veil, and was hence brought, from time to time, and presented to the image of the Virgin in the chapel, and sprinkled with holy water. I saw her once, on one of these occasions: she was a sweet, pretty little laughing thing, then not two years old, and the peasant, who doted on her, had not yet weaned her. Poor little baby! how my heart ached for her when I thought of the long weary life for which she was destined.

But it was about the first of August, and the weather was particularly hot, when news was brought us that little Ella Rosa had died after a short illness, and that we must prepare to attend her obsequies, as she was to be buried in the cimetière of the convent, as a pretendante to the sisterhood.

"Poor little babe!" whispered Pauline. "I could almost say, Thank God! that she has been delivered from the miseries preparing for her. Sweet infant! she is now among the blessed."

Ella Rosa had, it seems, died in the night; and early

in the morning the little corpse was brought to the convent, and placed on a bier in the centre of the chœur. Immediately after the matin service, Pauline and I stole into the chœur, to look at the innocent remains. The little form was extended on the open bier, which was covered with a white cloth. It was dressed in what is called the habit of a pretendante, which nearly resembled that which we wore; on the brow was a crown of odoriferous herbs; at the head of the corpse were six candles of wax, in silver candelabra; and at the feet of the babe a cross upon an escabeau, covered with a white napkin, a burning taper being on each side the cross.

Over the face of the infant was a white sheet of paper curiously cut. We lifted it up, and were startled to see how entirely changed were those sweet features, on the beauty of which the sisters used to descant so rapturously, comparing them to some bright figure of a cherub, such as holy men and women have pretended to see, when favoured with some celestial vision. The eyes of the corpse were sunk, and a circle of black had settled round the mouth, while, notwithstanding the incense which had been purposely thrown about the church by the care of the sacristan, a heavy smell already proceeded from the body.

"This is scarcely natural," I said to Pauline, "this poor babe died only a few hours since, and the work of dissolution seems to be proceeding at a frightful rate."

"The weather is hot," replied Pauline," and after all, dear sister, what signifies it how soon this work is finished: dust must return to dust; the soul, the immortal soul, is all we ought to care for.”

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We then knelt by the bier, and prayed earnestly, though in much ignorance, for the eternal welfare and deliverance from the fires of purgatory of the little pretendante, singing or chanting the following form of words, with many repetitions, thinking that we should be heard the more for our much speaking:sumas domine, pro tua pietate miserere animæ filiæ tuæ, Ella Rosæ, et a contagiis mortalitatis exutum, in æternæ salvationis partim restitue per dominum nostrum," &c. The interment of the infant pretendante took place, according to the usual forms, at twelve o'clock. At the hour appointed, all the religieuses assembled in the avant-chœur, and proceeded in order to the place where the body was, namely the chœur, the order of procession

being as follows-the sister who carried the benitier, or vase of holy water, going first; then she who carried the cross coming next, and the remainder following with lighted tapers, the superieure bringing up the rear. Having arrived in presence of the body, the sister who carried the benitier placed herself at the foot of the bier, the one who carried the cross at the head, and the rest of the sisters on each side. All being thus arranged, the priest entered with his acolytes, bringing the censers and the benitier for the purpose of throwing the holy water on the bier. He then said or sang the anthem, "Sit nomen domini," which the singers took up; and after various ceremonies and prayers, and several anthems, the little body was raised on the bier and carried to the cimetière, the priest, at the same time, singing these words," Juvenes et virgines, laudate dominumlaudate eum in excelsis." When the body had been committed to the dust, with various hymns and prayers, all in Latin, the priest cast holy water upon it, and incensed the body and the tomb; after which, the corpse was covered with earth, and we all returned to the chapel to conclude the service.

And here it was supposed, that, as we had done all which was required by the church for the little pretendante, every thing would return to its usual course, and be as it was before: but this was not to be; the obsequies of Ella Rosa were not so soon to be forgotten. La Mère Ursule would insist upon watching all night by the grave, and old Mère Aymée sad that it was a meritorious act, and showed the sincere interest of the aunt in the everlasting welfare of the poor babe; and I well remember seeing the poor enthusiast, as I now consider her to be, extended on the ground by the grave, on the cold damp earth, as I passed to the officium nocturnum : but this was not enough; the next day she must needs fast till sunset, and one of the sisters, who visited her in her cell during the day, edified us all by informing us that she had found her kneeling before her coffin, which it seems she had provided for herself some years before. There was a crucifix fixed upon the top of it, for it stood on its beam-ends at the foot of her pallet, and various garnitures of bones and sculls; and, as I said above, she was kneeling before this gloomy object, repeating some hundreds of ave marias and paternos ters. Thus she spent her day; how she occupied her

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