The man answered the question, for she looked to him, as a young bride might do on a like occasion.

"Six years," he replied, holding down the shaggy head with a queer smile, as a boy would do who was telling something of which he was half ashamed and half proud.

"Six years! How old are you, Monsieur ?"

"Sixty-seven, and she is-"

"I am seventy-seven," cried the better half, with the vivacity of old age that is proud of its age.

"Ten years older," summed up the sister. "And only married six years."

"Yes, it was the sister made the match," said the man, smiling at her.

"Yes," rejoined the old bride, "she gave me a wedding robe."

"She got us to the Church," the other added; "she made all the marriage."

"Only six years ago!" I cried doubtingly.

"Yes, six years ago," he replied, as if beginning to comprehend my doubtfulness, "but we were thirty-nine years together before that."

"Oh, oh !"

"Now you understand," said the sister; "so now we may go; allons, my friends, bon jour; I shall see you at the Church to-morrow; and don't forget the distribution on New Year's Day."

"Yes," she said, as we went out, "it is a fact, and you know it is common, for when people are very poor they often have not money to pay the expenses

D

of marriage. But when they are honest, and will consent to it, it is our duty to make them marry. So I went round myself and begged for them; and I got some money and some clothes, and we paid the expenses, and dressed up the old couple, and had them to Church, and got them married."

"But that woman with her three children ?”

"Oh! that is quite another case. We can do nothing there."

"Now look in here," she added; "here is a real good respectable old widow.”

The room was neat and even comfortable; the decently clad old solitary occupant stood at a table breaking some slices of bread into a basin of milk and water, which she was going to put on the fire. A gleam of joy shone over her face as she saw the white cap at her door.

"Ah! you are making your soup."

"GOD be thanked! it was you who gave it me from Him. Oh! my sister, day and night I thank and bless both Him and you; and I pray that He may bless you."

"That is good. Well, we are to have a distribution of bread; can you come? or have you any one to send ?"

"Yes, my sister, I can send a neighbour. It is such good bread," she said, taking up part of a loaf, and showing it to me; "it is she gives it to me; she gives me all; and I bless GOD, and pray for her."

"I will come with you another day," I said, as we were going back.

"To-morrow, then.-Ah, no! to-morrow will be our ironing day."

"Ironing day! Well, I shall sit by and see you iron."

"You want to learn ironing too? Very well, do so."

"I do not want to learn; I only want to talk to you, and you can talk while you are ironing."

I assure you it was quite a pretty sight to see the sisters ironing all their three months' store of white stiffened linen caps,-not a very easy work; and all the white hoods and dark uniform dresses engaged in the operation looked very well; and many very blooming good country faces appearing occasionally covered with smiles beneath them; one was a beautiful but more delicate one.

The Sister Superior had her iron, too; but a very ruddy good humoured sister came to her with a small strip of paper on which she read some words, and said to the bearer, "Take her to the surgery;" then turning to me she added, "A girl to be bled. I suppose you would not like to learn to bleed, too?" "You will bleed her,—oh dear!"

"That surprises you?"

"I should be so terrified. There is an artery.""Yes, but one does not cut an artery, one cuts a vein."

"But they are close together."

"That one must know, or one might take the one for the other. Will you come and see?"

I went, almost trembling.

"Well, my girl, the doctor says you must be bled.” "Yes, my sister."

"Sit down. Have you got a bandage?" "Yes, my sister."

"Give me your arm.-The other."

The arm is tied up; the ruddy sister attendant hands the lancet; the vein is opened; the proper quantity of blood taken; the vein bound up; the patient clapped on the shoulder; desired to come to see the operator if she is better, and to send for her if she is worse; the friend who brings her goes away with her, and the Sister Superior goes back to her ironing, and desires the blooming assistant to get me a glass of orange flower water, as I am ready to faint from the sight of blood, and the dread that in the operation of bleeding being performed by a woman an artery should be cut instead of a vein.

"Certainly if one were not properly taught that might happen," she said, "I thought so myself before I learnt how to do it; and I assure you the first time I did it I was a little uneasy."

To change the subject I began to talk of the multitude of white caps on the tables.

"You wear them wherever you go-in foreign countries too."

"Yes, except in England." "And why not there?"

"O!—Well, they say the children would laugh at us in the streets."

'They do not laugh at the German women, nor the Turks, nor Indians, nor any people who wear their own costumes; and then the dress I have seen worn by Sisters of Mercy there is so ugly."

"Ah! you need not tell me that. We had to dress one of ours like that to go to England, and I said to her when she put on the black bonnet-Now my dear, you are just dressed up to frighten the English crows."

Now you will say this is all mere gossip, and in truth it is nothing more; but there is some meaning in it for all that. I want you to see something of the reality of a real human creature which our English fancies have generally either exalted too high or sunk too low. It is her distinctive character of purity and goodness that separates her in any degree from other people. We know not very much of real nuns, convents, or sisters, in England; so that I am sure in my story-reading days, when I used to read of some fascinating nun escaping from her cell, I never imagined there was any difference between the cell of a nun in a convent, and the cell of a convict in prison. The other day I was led by circumstances into a convent of the strictest rule; so strict that no male relative beyond the relationship of father or brother must speak to a nun even through the iron bars of the grille, without the screen being down between them. On this occasion a very elegant nun,