preclous stones; his mantle was decorated with
gold and silver. After the completion of
the ghastly work at St. Denis, the coffin
of Madame Louise, daughter of Louis the
Fifteenth, was fetched from the Carmelite
convent, of which she was superior. Her
body was in the dress of a Carmelite nun,
and in a state of putrefaction. It was
taken to the cemetery of Valois, and
thrown with the rest into the fosse
commune. On the 12th of October a grand
ceremony and procession took place, in
order to transport the gold and treasure
found at St. Denis, with becoming dignity,
to the Convention Nationale."

In this way Revolution scattered the
treasured dust of kings!

SISTER X.'S CONVENT LIFE.

IN TWO PARTS. PART II.

NEXT day, Father Gabriel, to avoid any
difficulty, sent for Sister X. to speak to
him after mass, and resumed the
conversation at the point where it had been
broken off.

"If I rightly understood you," he said,
"what you wish is, that your family should
make the first advances, and so spare you
any sacrifice of self-esteem. That cannot
be. You have committed a grave fault,
and every fault carries with it expiation
and punishment. You have disowned
parental authority; you have braved and
trampled it underfoot. It is your place
to sue for pardon; on that point I will
admit of no compromise. I am ready to
favour a step in that direction, if you wish
it; but it must be frank and full. You
must acknowledge yourself to be
completely in the wrong. Have you thought
the matter over carefully, and made up
your mind?"

"I think I have, mon père. I begin to
comprehend that this convent life, with
which my imagination was smitten, as
young people are with a romance, has its
severe and terrible aspects, to which I feel
I cannot conform. Many things which
enchanted me at the outset now seem
either puerile or unnecessarily rigid. My
haughty temper cannot bear contradiction,
and I feel no inclination to make, in favour
of my superiors, a total abnegation of my
own proper will. And, as I stated yesterday,
I have lost confidence even in Madame
Blandine."

"That, my daughter, is what I call plain
speaking. I see that I have not to
renounce my first impressions. I judged you
to be unfitted for a cloister life. These
rash vocations, fostered and developed by
young or inexperienced priests rarely hold
out; and if the subjects remain with us,
it is only for their own torment and that
of everybody about them. What shall we
decide, then? To return to the parental
home, repentant and humble, with the
determination to use every effort to atone
for the errors of the past. You write in
this sense; I will annote your letter, and
will undertake that it shall reach your
parents, either at St. Marceau or in
Gascony—if, indeed, they are really there."

"How kind and good you are, mon
pere!"

"No, my dear child, I am not kind and
good, only reasonable and a little
clearsighted; that's all. Kind and good I once
was, but vexations and disappointments
have soured me. It is no easy task to
have to direct a convent with such a
counter-directress as Madame Blandine.
What a struggle; what a fearful struggle!
Take care not to whisper what has passed
between us. She would find the means
of thwarting us, and of rendering useless
the advice I have given you; moreover,
she would get me into trouble at Paris.
But I forget the essential point: How will
you manage to write? Have you pen, ink,
and paper at your disposal?"

"Neither one nor the other, mon père.
You remember, we must have special
permission to write; and whatever we do
write inevitably passes under the inspection
of the mother superior."

"True." He reflected, and seemed
greatly annoyed. After a moment's thought,
he added, "Nevertheless, poor child, I
cannot refuse to help you; I cannot leave
you in the blind alley into which you have
strayed. Take this pencil and this sheet
of paper. It will be strange if you cannot
steal an instant to trace five or six lines in
a proper spirit, coming from the heart. I
will undertake the rest. I am sure you
quite know what I mean—repentance and
expressions of sincere regret. Go now,
my child; a longer interview might awake
suspicion. Come to the confessional the
day after to-morrow. Be discreet, and
trust nobody; otherwise I answer for
nothing. Like you, I suspect intrigues."

Father Gabriel's suspicions of intrigues
were well founded.

At two in the morning, Madame Blandine,
who had been in unusually good
humour during the day, stood by Sister
X.'s bedside, like an ill-omened vision. She