ourning in your heart, a
heart always so maternally disposed towards her. Whether our
child be buried beneath the marble of the tomb or the vault of
the cloister, what is the difference to us? Hardly eighteen
years of age, yet dead to the world!

At noon the profession took place, with solemn pomp, and I was
present, concealed behind the curtains of our pew. I felt, but
even with greater intensity, all the poignant emotion we
underwent at her novitiate. How strange! She is adored! And they
believe, universally, that she was attracted to a religious life
by an irresistible vocation; and yet whilst they believed it was
a happy event for her, an overwhelming sadness weighed down the
spectators. There appeared in the very air, as it were, a
doleful foreboding, and it was founded, if only half realised.

The profession terminated, they led our child into the
chapter-room, where the nomination of the new abbess was to take
place, and, thanks to my sovereign privilege, I went into this
room to await Fleur-de-Marie's return to the choir. She soon
entered; her emotion and weakness were so excessive that two of
the sisters supported her. I was alarmed, less at her paleness
and the great change in her features, than at the peculiar
expression of her smile, which seemed to me imprinted with a
kind of secret satisfaction.

Clemence, I say to you, perhaps we may very soon require all our
courage,--I feel within myself that our child is mortally
smitten. May Heaven grant that I am deceived, and may my
presentiments arise only from the despairing sadness which this
melancholy spectacle has inspired!

Fleur-de-Marie entered the chapter-room, all the stalls were
filled by the nuns. She went modestly to place herself last on
the left-hand side, still leaning on the arm of one of the
sisters, for she yet appeared very weak.

The Princess Juliana was seated at the end of the apartment,
with the grand prioress on one side and another dignitary on the
other, holding in her hand the golden crozier, the symbol of
abbatial authority. There was profound silence; and then the
lady abbess rose, took the crozier in her hand, and said, in a
voice of great emotion:

"My dear daughters, my great age compels me to confide to
younger hands this emblem of my spiritual power," and she
point