for them the call to prayer,
Not for them the warning bell.
As they flit about the eaves,
How their white wings catch the sun!
While below through orange leaves
Gleams the white cap of the nun.

Spotless kerchief, gown of gray,
Forehead wrapped in band of white:
These must labor, watch, and pray,
These must keep the cross in sight;
These are they who walk apart,
Who, with purpose undefiled,
Seek to fill a woman's heart
Without home or love or child.

Is it true that many hands
Find that rosary a chain?
True that 'neath these snowy bands
Throbs, full oft, a restless brain?
True that simple robe of gray
Covers oft a troubled breast?
True that pain and passion's sway
Enters even to this rest?

True, that at their holiest shrine,
In their hours of greatest good,
Comes to them a voice divine,
Of a sweeter womanhood?
It may be--how can _I_ tell
Who, outside the garden wall,
Only hear the convent bell.
Only see the shadows fall?

MARY LOWE DICKINSON.

ENGLISH WOMEN.

The consideration of the interesting subject which I now take up is not
new to me. Long ago I found myself thinking about it when occasion to do
so presented itself; and in this I was helped by the views of English
society presented in the literature of the day, some of the most
interesting studies of which are furnished in the novels written by
Englishwomen. Indeed, the whole subject of English life and character
has long been of the profoundest interest to me; and a recent visit to
England is rather the occasion than the cause of much of what I shall
write upon it. To say this is due to myself if not to my readers.[1]

[1] My article in the April number of "The Galaxy" happened to be
sent in without a title; and in hastily adding that with which it
appeared both the editor and myself forgot for the moment that it
was the title of Mr. Emerson's well-known book. My silent adoption
of it was an unintentional violation of courtesy which I regret.

One day a lady whom I had had the pleasure of taking in to dinner in a
country house near London, and whom I had soon found to be one of those
simple-minded, good-natured, truth-telling women who are notably common
in England, spoke to me about some ladies who on a previous day had
attracted her attention, adding, "I knew