collections of conventual life is connected.
The order is one which enjoins strict enclosure. The dress is of
coarse white serge or flannel, consisting of a long, narrow tunic with
flowing sleeves drawn over tight ones of linen; a _scapular_ or stole
(i.e., a piece of straight stuff half a yard broad worn hanging from
the shoulders both behind and before); a leathern girdle round the
waist, from which hangs a rosary, large, common and set in steel;
strong, thick sandals; a linen wimple enveloping the face and hiding
the ears, neck and roots of the hair; a woolen veil, black for the
professed nuns, white for the novices, and of white _linen_ for the
lay sisters; and over all an immense black cloak, falling around the
figure in statuesque folds.

In this order, and almost invariably in every other, a candidate is
admitted at first as a _postulant_ for a period of six months--a sort
of preliminary trial of her fitness for the religious life. She wears
ordinary clothes during this time--plain and black, of course, but not
of any prescribed shape. Sometimes, however, she is required by custom
to wear a plain black cap. After six months she is admitted as a
novice--i.e., she solemnly puts off the secular dress and wears the
habit of the order, making the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience
for the space of one year only. The details of the ceremony vary in
different orders, but the ceremony itself is called in all by the
generic name of "clothing" or "taking the white veil." In orders where
a white woolen veil is the badge of profession (these are not many)
a linen one is equally the mark of the novice and the lay sister.
Although there exists for convenience' sake a distinction between
choir-nuns and lay sisters--the former paying a dowry to the common
fund on the day of their entrance, and the latter bringing their
manual service to the house instead of any offering--still, the
difference is not spiritual, and beyond the mere distribution of labor
is not practically discernible. In orders where the education of youth
is the primary object, the lay sisters, under the supervision of the
choir-nun to whose charge the housekeeping is directly entrusted,
perform all the menial service, which would otherwise make too many
inroads on the time of the teaching nuns; but in other orders, the
Carmelites for instance, the lowest work, be it of the kitchen, the
laundry or the chamber, is undertaken in turn by every member of the
co