gracefully over their work, and the monk resting his chin upon his hands, looked from one to the other in silence.
"'How much better,' he said at length, 'to shun all such thoughts and chances, and in the peaceful shelter of the church devote your lives to Heaven! Infancy, childhood, the prime of life, and old age, wither as rapidly as they crowd upon each other. Think how human dust rolls onward to the tomb, and turning your faces steadily towards that goal, avoid the cloud which takes its rise among the pleasures of the world and cheats the senses of their votaries. The veil, daughters, the veil!'
"'Never, sisters,' cried Alice. 'Barter not the light and air of heaven, and the freshness of earth and all the beautiful things which breathe upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell. Nature's own blessings are the proper goods of life, and we may share them sinlessly together. To die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us die with life about us; when our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm hearts be beating near; let our last look be upon the bounds which God has set to his own bright skies, and not on stone walls and bars of iron. Dear sisters, let us live and die, if you list, in this green garden's compass; only shun the gloom and sadness of a cloister, and we shall be happy.'
"The tears fell fast from the maiden's eyes as she closed her impassioned appeal, and hid her face in the bosom of her sister.
"'Take comfort, Alice,' said the eldest, kissing her fair forehead. 'The veil shall never cast its shadow on thy young brow. How say you, sisters? For yourselves you speak, and not for Alice, or for me.'
"The sisters, as with one accord, cried that their lot was cast together, and that there were dwellings for peace and virtue beyond the convent's walls.
"'Father,' said the eldest lady, rising with dignity, 'you hear our final resolve. The same pious care which enriched the abbey of Saint Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy guardianship, directed that no constraint should be imposed upon our inclinations, but that we, should be free to live according to our choice. Let us hear no more of this, we pray you. Sisters, it is nearly noon. Let us take shelter until evening!' With a reverence to the Friar, the lady rose and walked towards the house hand in hand with Alice; and the other sisters followed.
"The holy man, who had often urged the same point before, but had never met with so direct a repulse, walked some little distance behind, with his eyes bent upon the earth, and his lips moving as if in prayer. As the sisters reached the porch, he quickened his pace and called upon them to stop.
"'Stay,' said the monk, raising his right hand in the air, and directing an angry glance by turns at Alice and the eldest sister, 'Stay, and hear from me what these recollections are, which you would cherish above eternity, and awaken—if in mercy they slumbered—by means of idle toys. The memory of earthly things is charged in after life with bitter disappointment, affliction, and death; with dreary change and wasting sorrow. The time will one day come when a glance at those
