hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.

Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down place
enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the externes were
gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies; pleasant was it
then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the bells of St. Jean
Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.

I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
Protestant, exempted myself.

"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay with
us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
enjoy these precious minutes."

The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain attic
loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the
women-servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allee
defendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
was seldom entered even during da