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184 have known youth or emotion;—a breathing machine, pursuing day after day, a monotonous round of habits rather than duties, and impassive rather than content. They were then conducted to their separate cells, where they were left for the night.

Francesca felt oppressed as she gazed on the bare walls, the wooden pallet, the crucifix at the foot, where the wan light of the ill-supplied lamp gave a strange ghastliness to the dying agony of the Saviour. She turned to the casement on which the moon was shining; for the high wind had driven aside the clouds, whose huge dark masses threatened soon to eclipse the pale and dim circle of passing light. The window opened on a square court-yard, paved, and surrounded by the heavy building, whose high dead walls seemed to repel the gaze.

The imagination of the Italian, accustomed to the picturesque convents of her native land, shrank from the sterile austerity around. "Alas!" thought she, "can the Almighty Benefactor, who delighteth in the work of his hands—who has covered the fair earth with beauty as with a garment,—can he take pleasure in the penance which fills this sullen edifice? Why are we sent into life, but to share in life's sympathies and