den. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed
two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory.
The walls were white, the tables were black; these two mourning colors
constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and
the food of the children themselves severe. A single dish of meat and
vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagre
fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an
exception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the mother
whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against
the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence
was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little
pulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix. The
reader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances,
on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which the
pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which
they sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish; this was
punished. These bowls were called ronds d'eau. The child who broke the
silence "made a cross with her tongue." Where? On the ground. She licked
the pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged with the
chastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which had been guilty of
chirping.

There was in the convent a book which has never been printed except as
a unique copy, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of
Saint-Benoit. An arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo
regulas, seu constitutiones nostras, externis communicabit.

The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and set
to reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted by
the fear of being caught, which caused them to close the volume
precipitately.

From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderate
amount of pleasure. The most "interesting thing" they found were some
unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys.

They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby
fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of
the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they
sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or
an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech
to a letter which lie