de Fleury herself. Last night
we could hardly have hoped to see these walls standing this morning, and
yet it is safe--not a stone touched! Oh, we shall all live, I hope, to
see better times!"

Sister Frances smiled, for she would not depress Victoire's enthusiastic
hope: to please her, the good nun added, that she felt better this
morning than she had felt for months, and Victoire was happier than she
had been since Madame de Fleury left France. But, alas! it was only a
transient gleam. Sister Frances relapsed and declined so rapidly, that
even Victoire, whose mind was almost always disposed to hope, despaired
of her recovery. With placid resignation, or rather with mild
confidence, this innocent and benevolent creature met the approach of
death. She seemed attached to earth only by affection for those whom she
was to leave in this world. Two of the youngest of the children who had
formerly been placed under her care, and who were not yet able to earn
their own subsistence, she kept with her, and in the last days of her
life she continued her instructions to them with the fond solicitude of a
parent. Her father confessor, an excellent man, who never even in these
dangerous times shrank from his duty, came to Sister Frances in her last
moments, and relieved her mind from all anxiety, by promising to place
the two little children with the lady who had been abbess of her convent,
who would to the utmost of her power protect and provide for them
suitably. Satisfied by this promise, the good Sister Frances smiled upon
Victoire, who stood beside her bed, and with that smile upon her
countenance expired.--It was some time before the little children seemed
to comprehend, or to believe, that Sister Frances was dead: they had
never before seen any one die; they had no idea what it was to die, and
their first feeling was astonishment; they did not seem to understand why
Victoire wept. But the next day when no Sister Frances spoke to them,
when every hour they missed some accustomed kindness from her,--when
presently they saw the preparations for her funeral,--when they heard
that she was to be buried in the earth, and that they should never see
her more,--they could neither play nor eat, but sat in a corner holding
each other's hands, and watching everything that was done for the dead by
Victoire.

In those times, the funeral of a nun, with a priest attending, would not
have been permitted by the populace. It was ther