course. The girls were, at the same time,
always very careful to go regularly to
chapel, and that not through any motive of
fear, because they certainly had no very hard
penances imposed on them for anything. I
used to see them on a certain number of
evenings after confession-days kneeling before
the table in the dormitory, with their prayer-
books, repeating penance portions—such as
the Ave Maria or Credo—so many times
over, as fast as possible; then they would
jump up, and perhaps contradict something
that had been said by somebody a long time
before, while they were repeating. They
thought us English girls all very greedy,
because on Good Friday, instead of breakfasting
as they did on dry bread and cold water,
we had our usual milk and toast, and
moreover some hot-cross-buns: which Madame
Grondet, thinking them part of the Protestant
religion, was at great pains to procure.

When any of the French girls were to
receive the first communion, they were
separated from the rest of us for a month or
so before; and were constantly in the chapel,
constantly praying, constantly employed
upon religious things—except when they
very naturally thought and talked about
the dress that they should wear on the great
occasion, and about the beautiful rosaries
blessed by the pope, which they expected as
gifts from their friends. During a week
before the great event, they lived altogether
apart from us, except when they came to
bed, and then they spoke to none of us. On the
last night, when all their preparations were
completed, when they had been absolved for
all their sins from childhood to that hour,
and with excited imaginations were expecting
to be consecrated in the morning, they were
always in bed before we went up, in order
that they might avoid all intercourse with
us which might lead them into any petty sin
and make a fresh absolution necessary.

I heard one of these girls whisper from
her bed to her friend, "Ah, Leone! If I
could but die to-night, while I am sure to
go to heaven!" In a minute or two there
followed from the same lips another whisper,
"Have you seen my new dress?"

Next morning, none of the communicants
would wash their teeth, lest they should
breakfast by swallowing a drop of water.
Nothing was to be taken by them on that
day, until they had joined the communion.
It was very pretty to see these innocent
young girls start off to church, all dressed in
white, and veiled, with their books and
rosaries in their hands, and with their simple,
sincere, and profound faith shining in their
young eyes. When they returned, their
parents and many of their friends came with
them, and our garden was given up to their
exclusive use. We then saw no more of them
that night.

Their Sundays were spent much less
solemnly. After mass, many of them would
work for seven hours practising their music;
sometimes all our twenty pianos were at
work together. Others spent the day in the
garden, getting through their needlework
and telling tales, or reading. Madame
Grondet used to lend to the elder girls
translations of Scott's novels. Once, she lent
the Apocalypse; but I am not sure that the
borrower had not been condemned to read it
as a penance for her sins. Bible reading
was imputed to us English girls as a crime
by our schoolfellows, and was always thrown
in our teeth when a reproach was wanted.
I have often wondered since, what my
French sisterhood can have thought the Bible
contained.

The English daughters of Madame Grondet
spent Sunday together, in a room assigned
to them for that purpose. We went with
our mistress twice to church, and in the
evening had tea together, instead of dancing
with the French girls in the salon. Our
Protestant governess on that occasion reaped
the benefit of her lax discipline, for we
generously suffered her to take her second
cup before we proceeded to the emptying of
the kettle into the teapot and milk-jug, which
was our way of prolonging the repast.

Sometimes, in the summer, on those alternate
Sundays which we all spent at the
school, one or two of us English girls were
allowed to take an evening walk out of
doors with our governess. We went to the
Parc Monceau, or to Passy, and looked down
on the river and the Champ de Mars. It
was in the course of one of these expeditions
that we saw Monsieur de Lamière sitting
under a tree with a young lady, eating
cherries out of a marvellously common cotton
pocket-handkerchief. The report instantly
spread in the school, and it was said that he
was going to be married; which indeed he
was. The increase in the number of heart-
aches thus occasioned was enormous.

New Tale by the Author of MARY BARTON, publishing
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NORTH AND SOUTH.

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Price of each Weekly Number of HOUSEHOLD WORDS
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