only
to be attained beneath the nun's veil, and behind the convent
grating. She took the vows as soon as she was old enough,
endowed the convent with her fortune, and was perfectly happy.
She had neither friends nor relations outside this little
world in which she had been brought up, and she desired
nothing beyond what it could afford her. She had, as she well
knew, secured for herself in the next world a sure
compensation for any little sacrifices she might have made in
this--a reflection that often consoled her under a too
prolonged course of prayer and meditation, for which, to say
the truth, she had little aptitude--and for the rest, she was
universally allowed to be the best compote-maker (the nuns
were famous for their compotes, which were in great demand),
the best embroiderer, the best altar-decorator in the convent.
What more could be expected or demanded of life? Soeur Lucie,
at any rate, was quite satisfied with her position, and this
perfectly simple-minded, good-tempered little sister was a
general favourite. Madelon could not have fallen into kinder
hands; Soeur Lucie, if not always very wise, was at least very
good-natured, and if she did not win much respect or
admiration from our little Madelon, who was not long in
discovering that she knew a great deal about a great many
things that the nun had never heard or dreamt of, the poor
child at least learnt to recognize hers as a friendly face,
and to turn to her in these dreary days.

The convent was neither very large nor very wealthy. The
building itself had formerly been a chateau-farm, which, with
its sheds and outlying buildings, had, many years ago, been
converted with considerable alterations into its present form;
rooms had been partitioned off, a little chapel had been
built, the hall turned into a refectory, the farmyard and
orchard into a pleasant sunny garden with lawn, and flower-
beds, and shrubs, with vines and fruit-trees alternating with
creepers along the old walls. As for the sisters, few were
from the upper ranks of society, belonging for the most part,
rather to the middle and bourgeois class. Mademoiselle Linders
had gained her present position not less by her superior birth
and education, than by that to which she would more willingly
have attributed her elevation--a certain asceticism of life
which she affected, an extra observance of fasts and vigils,
which the good nuns looked upon with reverence, without caring
to emulate su