pewter-jugs and goblets stood by the
side of each patient, and they were provided with godly books (to
judge from the building), in which several were reading at leisure.
Honest old comfortable nuns, in queer dresses of blue, black, white,
and flannel, were bustling through the room, attending to the wants
of the sick. I saw about a dozen of these kind women's faces; one was
young,--all were healthy and cheerful. One came with bare blue arms
and a great pile of linen from an out-house--such a grange as Cedric
the Saxon might have given to a guest for the night. A couple were in
a laboratory, a tall, bright, clean room, 500 years old at least.

"We saw you were not very religious," said one of the old ladies, with
a red, wrinkled, good-humored face, "by your behavior yesterday in
chapel."

And yet we did not laugh and talk as we used at college, but were
profoundly affected by the scene that we saw there. It was a fete-day;
a work of Mozart was sung in the evening--not well sung, and yet so
exquisitely tender and melodious, that it brought tears into our eyes.
There were not above twenty people in the church; all, save three or
four, were women in long black cloaks. I took them for nuns at first.
They were, however, the common people of the town, very poor indeed,
doubtless, for the priest's box that was brought round was not
added to by most of them, and their contributions were but two-cent
pieces--five of these go to a penny; but we know the value of such,
and can tell the exact worth of a poor woman's mite!

The box-bearer did not seem at first willing to accept our
donation--we were strangers and heretics; however, I held out my hand,
and he came perforce as it were. Indeed it had only a franc in it; but
"que voulez vous?" I had been drinking a bottle of Rhine wine that
day, and how was I to afford more? The Rhine wine is dear in this
country, and costs four francs a bottle.

Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, two Englishmen, four
ragged beggars, cowering on the steps; and there was the priest at the
altar, in a great robe of gold and damask, two little boys in white
surplices serving him, holding his robe as he rose and bowed, and the
money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling the little chapel with
smoke.

The music pealed with wonderful sweetness; you could see the prim
white heads of the nuns in their gallery. The evening light streamed
down upon old statues of saints and carved brown st