reatly afflict me in the idea of a
new country," said Basil, as they loitered slowly through the grounds of
the convent toward the gate. "Of course, it's absurd to think of men as
other than men, as having changed their natures with their skies; but a
new land always does seem at first thoughts like a new chance afforded
the race for goodness and happiness, for health and life. So I grieve for
the earliest dead at Plymouth more than for the multitude that the plague
swept away in London; I shudder over the crime of the first guilty man,
the sin of the first wicked woman in a new country; the trouble of the
first youth or maiden crossed in love there is intolerable. All should be
hope and freedom and prosperous life upon that virgin soil. It never was
so since Eden; but none the less I feel it ought to be; and I am
oppressed by the thought that among the earliest walls which rose upon
this broad meadow of Montreal were those built to immure the innocence of
such young girls as these and shut them from the life we find so fair.
Wouldn't you like to know who was the first that took the veil in this
wild new country? Who was she, poor soul, and what was her deep sorrow or
lofty rapture? You can fancy her some Indian maiden lured to the
renunciation by the splendor of symbols and promises seen vaguely through
the lingering mists of her native superstitions; or some weary soul, sick
from the vanities and vices, the bloodshed and the tears of the Old
World, and eager for a silence profounder than that of the wilderness
into which she had fled. Well, the Church knows and God. She was dust
long ago."

From time to time there had fallen little fitful showers during the
morning. Now as the wedding-journeyers passed out of the convent gate the
rain dropped soft and thin, and the gray clouds that floated through the
sky so swiftly were as far-seen Gray Sisters in flight for heaven.

"We shall have time for the drive round the mountain before dinner," said
Basil, as they got into their carriage again; and he was giving the order
to the driver, when Isabel asked how far it was.

"Nine miles."

"O, then we can't think of going with one horse. You know," she added,
"that we always intended to have two horses for going round the
mountain."

"No," said Basil, not yet used to having his decisions reached without
his knowledge. "And I don't see why we should. Everybody goes with one.
You don't suppose we're too heavy, do you?"

"I ha