her's side.

THERESA'S FIRST LETTER.

"You will have learned from my letter to my mother, my
kind friend, all the little details of my journey and
safe arrival at my destination. I felt as if some of my
visions of romance were realized, when this beautifully
adorned place, in its strange and solemn stillness,
stood before me. All the grounds surrounding the
convent-buildings are highly cultivated and tastefully
improved, presenting a vivid contrast between the wild
luxuriance of nature, and the formal, artificial life
within these cold, stern walls. Several of the nuns,
with downcast eyes and thoughtful steps, were taking
their monotonous exercise in the paths through the
shrubbery; and shall I confess that I looked with
mingled doubt and envy upon those dark-robed
figures--doubt, if the restlessness of humanity _can_
thus be curbed into repose, and envy of that
uninterrupted peace, if, indeed, it may be gained.
Strange seem this existence of sacrifice, this
voluntary abandonment of life's aims and more extended
duties, this repelling, crushing routine of penance and
ceremony, with which, in the very midst of activity,
and in the bloom of energy, vain mortals strive to put
off the inevitable fetters of mortality. Doubtless,
many, from long habit, have grown familiar with this
vegetative, unbroken seclusion, and accustomed to
struggle with tenderness, and conquer impulse, have
ceased to feel affection, and rarely recall the friends
of their busier days--sad consummation of womanhood's
least enviable lot.

"But I believe it is, in all sincerity, from
self-delusion, not from deception, that these women,
many of them in the freshness of youth, separate
themselves from the wide privileges of their sex, and
contract their hearts into the exclusive and narrow
bounds of a convent's charities. What mental conflicts
must have been theirs, before, from the alluring gloss
of expectation, they could turn to embrace a career
like this. Some, perhaps, believed the possibility of
winning tranquillity by shutting out the temptation of
the world, believed that dust might be spiritualized,
and the mind, debarred from its natural tendencies,
taught to dream only of heaven. Others have sought the
cloister as a refuge fo