ur."

Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of
this century Ecouen was one of those strict and graceful places where
young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At
Ecouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament,
a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the
"dais" and the "censors,"--the first who held the cords of the dais, and
the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament. The flowers
belonged by right to the florists. Four "virgins" walked in advance. On
the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question
put in the dormitory, "Who is a virgin?"

Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a "little one" of seven
years, to a "big girl" of sixteen, who took the head of the procession,
while she, the little one, remained at the rear, "You are a virgin, but
I am not."

CHAPTER V--DISTRACTIONS

Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the white
Paternoster, and which possessed the property of bearing people straight
to paradise, was inscribed in large black letters:--

"Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which God
placed in paradise. In the evening, when I went to bed, I found three
angels sitting on my bed, one at the foot, two at the head, the good
Virgin Mary in the middle, who told me to lie down without hesitation.
The good God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three
apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The shirt in
which God was born envelopes my body; Saint Margaret's cross is written
on my breast. Madame the Virgin was walking through the meadows, weeping
for God, when she met M. Saint John. 'Monsieur Saint John, whence come
you?' 'I come from Ave Salus.' 'You have not seen the good God; where
is he?' 'He is on the tree of the Cross, his feet hanging, his hands
nailed, a little cap of white thorns on his head.' Whoever shall say
this thrice at eventide, thrice in the morning, shall win paradise at
the last."

In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under
a triple coating of daubing paint. At the present time it is finally
disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and
who are old women now.

A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this
refectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on the
gar