Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/422

432 “I feel as if I had known you a thousand years!” said the handsome abbess to me, as she looked at me with an expression beaming with kindness. Her demeanor was that of a princess, in its dignity and grace. Little Elsa had the greatest inclination to bid farewell to the world and to the Waldensian, and to take up her abode here. But one must have a little of the gold-fish nature to be comfortable for any length of time in this kind of still life. When we left, the nuns assembled in the beautiful court, shaded with its large trees, and at the great arched-gateway to bid us goodby. They kissed their hands to us, nodded and made parting signs and looked so handsome and so happy, standing there in their brilliant head-dresses, that I felt myself, as it were, a little dazzled by it. Nor was it till afterwards that the question suggested itself,—what is the object of these great means? For the convent is immensely rich. It is true that a hospital for sick women, who are to be attended to by the nuns, is connected with this convent. Perhaps I was wrong in supposing, that the good sisters thought far less of this than the Largo del Mercato, the gold-fish and the gilded pictures.

During these and other rambles in Naples I have