Neapolitan family, who from her cradle had been destined to
the cloister, in order that her brother and sister might inherit more
splendid fortunes and form more splendid connections. She had been sent
to this place too early to have much recollection of any other mode of
life; and when the time came to take the irrevocable step, she renounced
with composure a world she had never known.

Her brother had endowed her with a _livre des heures_, illuminated with
all the wealth of blue and gold and divers colors which the art of those
times afforded,--a work executed by a pupil of the celebrated Fra
Angelico; and the possession of this treasure was regarded by her as
a far richer inheritance than that princely state of which she knew
nothing. Her neat little cell had a window that looked down on the
sea,--on Capri, with its fantastic grottos,--on Vesuvius, with its
weird daily and nightly changes. The light that came in from the joint
reflection of sea and sky gave a golden and picturesque coloring to the
simple and bare furniture, and in sunny weather she often sat there,
just as a lizard lies upon a wall, with the simple, warm, delightful
sense of living and being amid, scenes of so much beauty. Of the life
that people lived in the outer world, the struggle, the hope, the fear,
the vivid joy, the bitter sorrow, Sister Theresa knew nothing. She could
form no judgment and give no advice founded on any such experience.

The only life she knew was a certain ideal one, drawn from, the legends
of the saints; and her piety was a calm, pure enthusiasm which had never
been disturbed by a temptation or a struggle. Her rule in the Convent
was even and serene; but those who came to her flock from the real
world, from the trials and temptations of a real experience, were always
enigmas to her, and she could scarcely comprehend or aid them.

In fact, since in the cloister, as everywhere else, character will find
its level, it was old Jocunda who was the real governess of the Convent.
Jocunda was originally a peasant woman, whose husband had been drafted
to some of the wars of his betters, and she had followed his fortunes in
the camp. In the sack of a fortress, she lost her husband and four sons,
all the children she had, and herself received an injury which distorted
her form, and so she took refuge in the Convent. Here her energy and
_savoir-faire_ rendered her indispensable in every department. She made
the bargains, bought the prov