strictly
cloistered Orders were as excited as children over this unexpected
irruption into their convent of two strangers from the world outside,
which they had left for so long. They struck me as most excellent,
earnest women, and they delighted in exhibiting all their treasures,
including the ecclesiastical vestments and their Church plate. They
always made a point of showing us, as an object of great interest, the
flat candlestick of bougie that the Cardinal-Archbishop had used when
he had last celebrated Pontifical High Mass in their chapel. In one
strictly cloistered convent there was a high wooden trellis across the
chapel, so that though the nuns could see the priest at the altar
through the trellis-work, he was unable to see them. In the Convent of
the Grey Sisters at Ottawa we found an old English nun who, in spite of
having spent thirty-five years in a French-Canadian convent, still
retained the strong Cockney accent of her native London. She was a
cheery old soul, and, with another old English nun, had charge of the
wardrobe, which they insisted on showing me. I was gazing at piles of
clothing neatly arranged on shelves, when the old Cockney nun clapped
her hands. "We will dress you up as a Sister," she cried, and they
promptly proceeded to do so. They put me on a habit (largest size) over
my other clothes, chuckling with glee meanwhile, and I was duly draped
in the guimpe, the piece of linen which covers a nun's head and
shoulders and frames her face, called, I believe, in English a
"wimple," and my toilet was complete except for my veil, when, by a
piece of real bad luck, the Reverend Mother and my sister came into the
room. We had no time to hide, so we were caught. Having no moustache, I
flattered myself that I made rather a saintly-looking novice, and I hid
my hands in the orthodox way in my sleeves, but the Mother Superior was
evidently very much put out. The clothes that had come in contact with
my heretical person were ordered to be placed on one side, I presume to
be morally disinfected, and I can only trust that the two old nuns did
not get into serious trouble over their little joke. I am sorry that my
toilet was not completed; I should like to have felt that just for once
in my life I had taken the veil, if for five minutes only.

In the "eighties" the city of Montreal spent large sums over their
Winter Carnival. It attracted crowds of strangers, principally from the
United States, and it certainl