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188 tenderly joys and sorrows which never more can disturb a pilgrimage, which is even now passing through the valley of the shadows of death. The monastic seclusion of Sister Louise was like old age, inasmuch as all events and emotions in life were left far behind; all emotions, did we say?—not so. There are some that will rise even at the foot of the altar, and will haunt the pillow, however guarded by penance and by prayer. These remembrances would have been less vivid had Mademoiselle d'Epernon remained in the world: love would have become its own atheist, as it found of what changeable and finite material that passion was formed, which once seemed so eternal; and the single disappointment on which she now dwelt would have grown supportable from companionship. Mademoiselle d'Epernon, in the gay and varied pathway of busier life, would have almost lost the image now so constant and so precious.

At the back of the convent was a large though neglected garden. Fruit and yew-trees mingled together; and in some of the more sunny patches, one or two of the nuns had cultivated some, carnations, whose green buds were just beginning to take the small globular form, which, as yet, had no beauty but that of promise.