The Gray is not to be
mentioned in the same year. Do not, however, flatter yourself that in
choosing the Black you will be any more enviable; there will not be
wanting myriads who will assure you, that, not having seen the Gray,
you might as well have seen nothing at all. To the Gray Nunnery went
we, and saw pictures and altars and saints and candlesticks, and little
dove-cot floors of galleries jutting out, where a few women crossed,
genuflected, and mumbled, and an old woman came out of a door above one
of them, and asked the people below not to talk so loud, because they
disturbed the worshippers; but the people kept talking, and presently
she came out again, and repeated her request, with a little of the
Inquisition in her tones and gestures,--no more than was justifiable
under the circumstances: but she looked straight at me; and O old
woman! it was not I that talked, nor my party. We were noiseless as
mice. It was that woman over there in a Gothic bonnet, with a bunch of
roses under the roof as big as a cabbage. Presently the great doors
opened, and a procession of nuns marched in chanting their gibberish.
Of course they wore the disguise of those abominable caps, with gray,
uncouth dresses, the skirts taken up in front and pinned behind, after
the manner of washerwomen. Yet there were faces among them on which
the eye loved to linger,--some not too young for their years, some
furtive glances, some demure looks from the yet undeadened youth under
those ugly robes,--some faces of struggle and some of victory. O
Mother Church, here I do not believe in you! These natures are gnarled,
not nurtured. These elaborately reposeful faces are not natural.
These downcast eyes and droning voices are not natural. Not one thing
here is natural. Whisk off these clinging gray washing-gowns, put these
girls into crinoline and Gothic bonnets, and the innocent finery that
belongs to them, and send them out into the wholesome daylight to talk
and laugh and make merry,--the birthright of their young years. A
religion that deprives young girls or old girls of this boon is not the
religion of Jesus Christ. Don't tell me!

The nuns pass out, and we wander through the silent yard, cut off by
all the gloom of the medieval times from the din, activity, and good
cheer of the street beyond, and are conducted into the Old Men's
Department. The floors and furniture are faultlessly and fragrantly
clean. The kitchen is neat and suscep