thirty years past; their children's ages,
marriages, and so forth; combined with a minuteness of detail that
nothing but the prolonged concentration of her faculties within a most
circumscribed sphere could have enabled her to attain.

“Does Vou Scia”—a corruption of the French _Votre seigneurie_—“Does
Vou Scia remember the Conte L——, who lived in the street just opposite
the barber's and had an only daughter, whom he married to the son of
the Marchese of A——, who went away with the French to fight, and died
of cold in England when the great Napoleon burnt that town?—Ah, dear,
I forget the name—stop—yes, yes, it was London. Well, as I was saying,
his daughter, grand-daughter to the conte, was placed with us for her
education, and then married at sixteen, the day after she left these
walls: the spouse was rather _gobbo_—that is, humpbacked—and fifty
years old, but very rich; so it was a good match. Vou Scia has surely
not forgotten her: you were a young man then.”

“Oh, I recollect perfectly, perfectly,” groaned the general.

“Well, she was not happy—as indeed who is in marriage?—and her youngest
daughter being externally like her father in person, the Madonna gave
her grace to see the vanity of the world; so that nearly a year ago
her solemn admission amongst us took place. In another month or so
she will take the final vows. Oh, it is a peaceful, blessed life to
those who are called to enter it! Does Vou Scia imagine that the wicked
Government intends shortly to suppress all the religious communities?”

“The question they always ask,” observed Signor Bonaventura in an
under-tone.

“Ah! we must hope,” said the general, gravely. “It would be terrible,
you have been here so many years.”

“Thirty-seven completed on the Festival of the Assumption.”

“Impossible! You must have entered a mere child.”

“I took the veil at sixteen,” said the Madre Teresa, with a simpering
smile, which demonstrated that she, too, was not invulnerable on all
women's weak poi