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 was concluded the music again struck up; the heroine of the day came forward, and stood before the grating to take her last look of this wicked world. Down fell the black curtain. Up rose the relations, and I accompanied them into the sacristy. Here they coolly lighted their cigars, and very philosophically discoursed upon the exceeding good fortune of the new-made nun,