ewell to this
elder sister. The meeting was very affecting: the sisters could not
see each other face to face--a thick grating separated them. The elder
had long been a spiritual guide to the younger: she had led her mind
in the direction of the cloister, and now rejoiced sincerely that God
had smoothed away the family difficulties and pecuniary embarrassments
which for some time had stood in the way of her vocation. Still,
natural affection was not stifled in the generous, unselfish heart of
the cloistered nun, and she wept with her sister at the thought that,
though the walls of the same city would hold them both till death, and
hardly a few blocks of houses separate their convent homes, yet in
the flesh they should never meet again. The English godmother sat in a
remote corner of the cool, shady parlor, sympathizing in silence with
the touching scene, but keeping as much in the background as etiquette
and custom allowed, that she might not intrude on this last farewell.
At length the curtain behind the grating fell, and the young girl had
severed the tenderest link that bound her to the world. Many other
visits were paid--some to friends of Mademoiselle G----'s parents (she
had long been an orphan), some to ecclesiastical personages who had
interested themselves to procure her admission into the Dominican
community. With repeated blessings the young girl left their presence,
every day advancing nearer to her spiritual bridal.

At last the day came. Early in the morning the madrina arrived at the
convent with her two little girls of six and eight years old dressed
in white as bridesmaids, or, as the Italian term _angiolini_ has it,
little angels. They bore delicate baskets filled with white flowers to
strew before the "bride," and their office during the ceremony was
to hold the novice's gloves, fan and handkerchief. The young girl
herself, looking pale and earnest, walked up the aisle of the convent
chapel in bridal robes of white silk, with a veil and wreath on her
head, and round her neck a string of pearls, an heirloom in the G----
family. Her brother, the only male representative of her once powerful
house, was present in the outer chapel, full of grief at a sacrifice
which he had never countenanced, and ready to claim that morning the
only legacy of his sister the promise of which he had been able to
secure--the thick coils of her black hair when they should have been
cut off preparatory to her taking the novice