failure.

At Tunicu's suggestion, every Sunday morning I visit the convent chapel
which is attached to the building itself, and is open to the public at
prescribed hours. The chapel is a bare-looking sanctuary of small
dimensions, and easily crowded by a score or two of ladies with white
veils, who come to pay their devotions from the neighbouring houses. At
one extremity of the white-washed chamber is an altar-piece, before
which a priest, assisted by a boy, officiates, and to the left is a
strongly-barred window connected with the interior of the convent.
Behind this window, which is heavily curtained as well as railed, stand
the nuns and other inmates of the cloister, who have come to take part
in the ceremonies. The responses are chanted by this invisible
congregation in a subdued tone. During a certain portion of the
ceremonies, the curtain is partially drawn, and the outline of a thickly
veiled devotee is discerned as she bends forward to kiss the priest's
hand and to receive his blessing. I envy the ecclesiastic, and gaze with
eager interest, as figure after figure approaches in turn; but my sight
cannot penetrate the dark recesses of the curtain, and the lady whom I
seek comes and disappears unrecognised.

I am aroused early one morning by a black messenger, who delivers me a
thick letter, which I open nervously, for I find it comes from the
'Convento de la Ensenanza.' The writing, though the contents savour
strongly of monastic diction, is certainly in Cachita's hand, and is
signed by herself.

'My dream of happiness,' the letter begins, 'can no longer be realised.
My conscience, my teachers, and my father-confessor, all persuade me
that I have sinned in the outer world, and that if I desire to be
absolved, I must repent without delay. Exhorted by the worthy nuns, I
am daily becoming more alive to a sense of my unworthiness, and
convinced of the urgent necessity for beginning a new life of holiness
and virtue. Guided to this blessed convent by the finger of Providence,
I have been enabled, with the assistance of the best of counsel, to
reflect seriously over what has happened, and I have now taken a vow
never again to act from the impulse of my young and inexperienced
heart.'

After dwelling upon the enormity of the offence of making love without
the approval of a parent, the writer exhorts me, by my 'mother,' and by
other people whom I 'hold dear,' to return her letters, and all other
evidence of the pas