e sweetest of your sex. I shall die of
grief when you leave this cottage to return to your sad prison."

"I must indeed return and do penance for my sins."

"I hope you have the wit to laugh at the abbess's silly
excommunications?"

"I begin not to dread them so much as I used to."

"I am delighted to hear it, as I see you will make me perfectly happy
after supper."

The country-woman came up, and I gave her another ten louis; but it
suddenly dawned upon me that she took me for a madman. To disabuse her of
this idea I told her that I was very rich, and that I wanted to make her
understand that I could not give her enough to testify my gratitude to
her for the care she had taken of the good nun. She wept, kissed my hand,
and served us a delicious supper. The nun ate well and drank
indifferently, but I was in too great a hurry to see the beautiful black
hair of this victim to her goodness of heart, and I could not follow her
example. The one appetite drove out the other.

As soon as we were relieved of the country-woman's presence, she removed
her hood, and let a mass of ebon hair fall upon her alabaster shoulders,
making a truly ravishing contrast. She put the portrait before her, and
proceeded to arrange her hair like the first M---- M----.

"You are handsomer than your sister," said I, "but I think she was more
affectionate than you."

"She may have been more affectionate, but she had not a better heart."

"She was much more amorous than you."

"I daresay; I have never been in love."

"That is strange; how about your nature and the impulse of the senses?"

"We arrange all that easily at the convent. We accuse ourselves to the
confessor, for we know it is a sin, but he treats it as a childish fault,
and absolves us without imposing any penances."

"He knows human nature, and makes allowances for your sad position."

"He is an old man, very learned, and of ascetic habits, but he is all
indulgence. It will be a sad day when we lose him."

"But in your amorous combats with another nun, don't you feel as if you
would like her to change into a man?"

"You make me laugh. To be sure, if my sweetheart became a man I should
not be sorry, but we do not desire such a miracle."

"That is, perhaps, through a coldness of temperament. In that your sister
was better, for she liked me much more than C---- C----, and you do not
like me as well as the sweetheart you left behind you at the convent."

"Certainly not, fo