andle when she
has been present." Soon after, the forms of three or four women were
dimly to be seen; but there was no candle, and the governess would not
bring one on any consideration. She was afraid of being found out and
excommunicated.

I saw that I was depriving my young friend of a pleasure, and would have
gone, but he told me to stay. I passed an hour which interested me in
spite of its painfulness. The voice of Menicuccio's sister sent a thrill
through me, and I fancied that the blind must fall in love through their
sense of hearing. The governess was a woman under thirty. She told me
that when the girls attained their twenty-fifth year they were placed in
charge of the younger ones, and at thirty-five they were free to leave
the convent if they liked, but that few cared to take this step, for fear
of falling into misery.

"Then there are a good many old women here?"

"There are a hundred of us, and the number is only decreased by death and
by occasional marriages."

"But how do those who go out to get married succeed in inspiring the love
of their husbands?"

"I have been here for twenty years, and in that time only four have gone
out, and they did not know their husbands till they met at the altar. As
might be expected, the men who solicit the cardinal for our hands are
either madmen, or fellows of desperate fortunes who want the two hundred
piastres. However, the cardinal-superintendent refuses permission unless
the postulant can satisfy him that he is capable of supporting a wife."

"How does he choose his bride?"

"He tells the cardinal what age and disposition he would prefer, and the
cardinal informs the mother-superior."

"I suppose you keep a good table, and are comfortably lodged."

"Not at all. Three thousand crowns a year are not much to keep a hundred
persons. Those who do a little work and earn something are the best off."

"What manner of people put their daughters in such a prison?"

"Either poor people or bigots who are afraid of their children falling
into evil ways. We only receive pretty girls here."

"Who is the judge of their prettiness?"

"The parents, the priest, and on the last appeal the
cardinal-superintendent, who rejects plain girls without pity, observing
that ugly women have no reason to fear the seductions of vice. So you may
imagine that, wretched as we are, we curse those who pronounced us
pretty."

"I pity you, and I wonder why leave is not given to see you op