epeated shocks to which I should be
doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the strength of my
affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy for the terror to the
nerves which she observed that the demoniac visitation caused in all.

I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good works; but I
performed them from no spirit of love, but solely from the hope of
reward and payment, and so the reward was never granted. At length, I
asked my uncle's leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, with no
distincter end than that of many another wanderer--to get away from
myself. A strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of the wars and
commotions then raging in the Low Countries--or rather, perhaps, the
very craving to become interested in something external, led me into
the thick of the struggle then going on with the Austrians. The cities
of Flanders were all full at that time of civil disturbances and
rebellions, only kept down by force, and the presence of an Austrian
garrison in every place.

I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was away
in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the Convent of
Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could only see the
dim, pent-up, grey walls, shut closely in by narrow streets, in the
lowest part of the town. My landlord told me, that had I been stricken
by some loathsome disease, or in desperate case of any kind, the Poor
Clares would have taken me, and tended me. He spoke of them as an order
of mercy of the strictest kind, dressing scantily in the coarsest
materials, going barefoot, living on what the inhabitants of Antwerp
chose to bestow, and sharing even those fragments and crumbs with the
poor and helpless that swarmed all around; receiving no letters or
communication with the outer world; utterly dead to everything but the
alleviation of suffering. He smiled at my inquiring whether I could get
speech of one of them; and told me that they were even forbidden to
speak for the purposes of begging their daily food; while yet they
lived, and fed others upon what was given in charity.

'But,' exclaimed I, 'supposing all men forgot them! Would they quietly
lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?'

'If such were their rule, the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but
their founder appointed a remedy for such extreme case as you suggest.
They have a bell--'tis but a small one, as I have heard, and has