take
pleasure in calling to mind the years when my spirit enjoyed the benefit
of schooling with friendly companions and by the side of my best friend.
Nay, even in the midst of the silent dwelling of the speechless Sisters,
right merry laughter might be heard during the hours of rest, and in
spite of the thick walls of the class-room it reached the nuns' ears.
Albeit at first I was stricken with awe, and shy in their presence, I
soon became familiar with their strange manner of life, and there was
many an one whom I learnt truly to love: with some, too, we could talk
and jest right merrily, for they, to be sure, had good ears, and we,
were not slow in learning the language of their eyes and fingers.

As concerning the rule of silence no one, to my knowledge, ever broke it
in the presence of us little ones, save only Sister Renata, and she was
dismissed from the convent; yet, as I waxed older, I could see that the
nuns were as fain to hear any tidings of the outer life that might find
a way into the cloister as though there was nothing they held more dear
than the world which they had withdrawn from by their own free choice.

For my part, I have ever been, and remain to the end, one of those least
fitted for the Carthusian habit, notwithstanding that Sister Margaret
would paint the beatitudes and the purifying power of her Order in fair
and tempting colors. In the hours given up to sacred teaching, when she
would shed out upon us the overflowing wealth and abundant grace of her
loving spirit--insomuch that she won not less than four souls of our
small number to the sisterhood--she was wont and glad to speak of this
matter, and would say that there was a heavenly spirit living and moving
in every human breast. That it told us, with the clear and holy voice
of angels, what was divine and true, but that the noise of the world and
our own vain imaginings sounded louder and would not suffer us to hear.
But that they who took upon them the Carthusian rule and hearkened to
it speechless, in a silent home, lending no ear to distant outer voices,
but only to those within, would ere long learn to mark the heavenly
voice with the inward ear and know its warning. That voice would declare
to them the glory and the will of the Most High God, and reveal the
things that are hidden in such wise as that even here below he should
take part in the joys of paradise.

But, for all that I never was a Carthusian nun, and that my tongue was
e