nd a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amused
themselves with it. It was new; it gave them a change. Candid reasons
of childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlings
comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand
and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of
a reading-desk.

The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the
practices of the convent. There was a certain young woman who entered
the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in
breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any
one knocked at her door, "forever!" Like the nuns, the pupils saw
their relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtain
permission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degree
severity on that point was carried. One day a young girl received a
visit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister three
years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace
her sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might be
permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could
kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused.

CHAPTER IV--GAYETIES

None the less, these young girls filled this grave house with charming
souvenirs.

At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation
hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds said, "Good;
here come the children!" An irruption of youth inundated that garden
intersected with a cross like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads,
innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered
about amid these shadows. After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals,
and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a
sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened,
and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other,
they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth
chattered in the corners; the veils superintended the laughs from a
distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it? Still
they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment
of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the
reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was
like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mournin