, still arrayed in her blue satin, white
lace veil and jewels, and also with a great lighted taper in her
hand.

"The black nuns then rose and sang a hymn, every now and then
falling on their faces and touching the floor with their
foreheads. The whole looked like an incantation, or a scene in
Robert le Diable. The novice was then raised from the ground and
led to the feet of the Bishop, who examined her as to her
vocation, and gave her his blessing, and once more the black
curtain fell between us and them.

"In the _second act_ she was lying prostrate on the floor,
disrobed of her profane dress, and covered over with a black
cloth, while the black figures kneeling around her chanted a
hymn. She was now dead to the world. The sunbeams had faded away
as if they would not look upon the scene, and all the light was
concentrated in one great mass upon the convent group.

"Again she was raised. All the blood had rushed into her face,
and her attempt to smile was truly painful. She then knelt down
before the Bishop, and received the benediction, with the sign of
the cross, from a white hand with the pastoral ring. She then
went round alone to embrace all the dark phantoms as they stood
motionless, and as each dark shadow clasped her in its arms, it
seemed like the dead welcoming a new arrival to the shades.

"But I forget the sermon, which was delivered by a fat priest,
who elbowed his way with some difficulty through the crowd to the
grating, panting and in a prodigious heat, and ensconced himself
in a great armchair close beside us. He assured her that she 'had
chosen the good part, which could not be taken away from her;'
that she was now one of the elect, 'chosen from among the
wickedness and dangers of the world'--(picked out like a plum
from a pie). He mentioned with pity and contempt those who were
'yet struggling in the great Babylon,' and compared their
miserable fate with hers, the Bride of Christ, who, after
suffering a few privations here during a short term of years,
should be received at once into a kingdom of glory. The whole
discourse was well calculated to rally her fainting spirits, if
fainting they were, and to inspire us with a great disgust for
ourselves.

"When the sermon wa