make it readable."

As he turned over his papers he was thinking of one Mother Van
Valckenissen, in religion Mary Margaret of the Angels, foundress of the
Priory of Carmelite Sisters at Oirschot in Dutch Brabant.

This pious lady was the daughter of a noble house, born on the 26th of
May, 1605, at Antwerp, during the wars which devastated Flanders, and at
the very time when Prince Maurice of Nassau was besieging the town. As
soon as she could read, her parents sent her to school in a convent of
Dominican nuns near Brussels. Her father dying, her mother removed her
from that convent and placed her with the White Ursulines of Louvain;
then she too died, and at fifteen the girl was an orphan.

Her guardian again removed her to the House of the Carmelite Sisters at
Mechlin; but the struggle between the Spaniards and the Flemings came
close to the district watered by the Dyle, and Marie Marguerite was once
more taken from her convent to find refuge with the canonesses of
Nivelles. Thus her whole childhood was spent in rushing from one convent
to another.

She was happy in these retreats, especially with the Carmelites,
adopting the hair shirt and submitting to the severest discipline; but
now, on coming forth from the most rigid cloistered life, she found
herself in the midst of a gay world. This Chapter of Canonesses, which
ought to have inculcated the mystic life, was one of those hybrid
institutions not altogether white nor quite black, a cross between
profane piety and pious laity. This Chapter, filled up exclusively from
the ranks of rich and high-born women, while the Abbess, nominated by
the Sovereign, assumed the title of Princess of Nivelles, led a devout
and frivolous life, passing strange. Not only might these semi-nuns go
out walking whenever they thought fit, they had a right to live at home
for a certain part of their time, and might even marry after obtaining
the consent of the Abbess.

In the morning those who chose to reside in the Abbey put on a monastic
habit during the services; then their religious duties ended; they
doffed the convent livery, dressed in splendid attire, the hoops and
bows and farthingales and ruffs that were then the fashion, and sat in
the parlour where visitors poured in.

The unhappy Marie loathed the dissipation of a life which hindered her
from ever being alone with her God. Bewildered by the gossip and ashamed
of wearing clothes that were offensive to her, compelled to steal