xcellent memory for impressions, and no reader whose own recollections
of childhood have not grown faint, but will feel the profound truth of
the spirit of the narrative, which is of a kind that occasional
exaggerations in the letter cannot depreciate in value as a
psychological history. For an account of her early life it must always
remain the most important source.

Aurore was now thirteen, and though she had read a good deal of
miscellaneous literature her instruction had been mostly of a desultory
sort; she was behindhand in the accomplishments deemed desirable for
young ladies; and her country manners, on the score of etiquette, left
something to be desired. To school, therefore, it was decided that she
must go; and her grandmother selected that held by the nuns of the
"English convent" at Paris, as the most fashionable institution of the
kind.

This _Convent des Anglaises_ was a British community, first established
in the French capital in Cromwell's time. It has now been removed, and
its site, the Rue St. Victor, has undergone complete transformation. In
1817, however, it was in high repute among conventual educational
establishments. To this retreat Aurore was consigned and there spent
more than two years, an untroubled time she has spoken of as in many
respects the happiest of her life. There is certainly nothing more
delightful in her memoirs than the vivid picture there drawn of the
convent-school interior, drawn without flattery or malice, and with
sympathy and animation.

The nunnery was an extensive building of rambling construction--with
parts disused and dilapidated--quite a little settlement, counting some
150 inmates, nuns, pupils and teachers; with cells and dormitories, long
corridors, chapels, kitchens, distillery, spiral staircases and
mysterious nooks and corners; a large garden planted with chestnut
trees, a kitchen garden, and a little cemetery without gravestones,
over-grown with evergreens and flowers. The sisters were all English,
Irish, or Scotch, but the majority of the pupils and the secular
mistresses were French. Of the nuns the ex-scholar speaks with respect
and affection, but their religious exercises left them but the smaller
share of their time and attention to devote to the pupils. The girls
almost without exception were of high social rank, the _bourgeois_
element as yet having scarcely penetrated this exclusive seminary.
Aurore formed warm friendships with many of her school-f