Section 311

moments at the side-altar, and then the princess con- ducted her to the cardinal-vicar. They both knelt to him, and as the candidate bent her head her long, rich tresses of chestnut-colored hair fell like a veil around her, and gave her a peculiar interest. He then blessed a crucifix, and presented it to the kneeling novice. The carrying of this crucifix is invariable in the order of St. Theresa. I could not catch the words that passed, though I was not four yards distant from them. Her dress was white satin richly damasked in gold. Her head was adorned with a diadem of diamonds, beneath which fell a profusion of long and luxuriant curls of rich chestnut-colored hair. Her neck was covered with precious stones, that flashed through the many ringlets that fell among them. Her breast was gemmed with brilliants, set ofl" by black vel- vet, so that she sparkled and blazed in all the man-nifi- cence of the jewels of the Borghese family, said t°o be among the most costly and splendid in Italy. There was a profusion of the most valuable lace, and a long train of gauze elegantly trimmed. This was borne by one of those beings of whom it is said that their visits are 'few and far between.' It was an angel, or, rarer still, a ser- aph. It had the appearance of a little girl of ei<Tht years of age, a pretty, gentle thing that seemed frightened at such close contact with sinful mortals. It had a wreath of no earth-born, but finger-made flowers upon its head. It had a short, a very short, dress of pale-blue silk, to show it was some creature of the skies. Its arms and its neck and its legs were covered, not, as in mortals, with skin, but with a silken texture that was colored like flesh ; and, to place its heavenly nature beyond doubt, it had two wings, regular feather wings, projecting from the shoulders, and very airily trimmed with swan's-down. There could be no doubt that, if not an infant angel, it was a real sylph or seraph, descended from the .skies to wait on the destined bride of Jesus Christ, After some moments the reverend confessor, attired in his monkish dress, approached, kissed the hand of the cardinal-vicar, and seated himself within the chancel. He then pro- ceeded to deliver an address or sermon to the destined novice. A curtain was raised at the side of the altar, and revealed an interior chapel. It was separated from that in which we were assembled by a strong grating of iron. Soon were lieard the voices of the whole sisterhood. They were chanting some litany, and their voices were first heard coming from some distant gallery. It was faint and feeble, hut sweetened by distance. It slowly swelled louder and clearer, as the sisterhood approached in slow and solemn procession, and recalled to my mind what had so often, in the days of romantic youth, filled my imagination in reading of the chants and the proces- sions of nuns in the romances of other days. The effect at the moment was veiy pleasing. The chant, feeble and distant at first, and then becofiiing louder and clearer, and all who so clianted approaching slowly, and all the associations that gathered and cniwded on my mind, gave a charm to the moment that I shall long remember. The chant censed, and from my position I could see the nuns, about sixteen in number, with three or four nov- ices, enter the iuterior chapel and move slowly and sol- emnly around it, all taking their station in two lines, at light angles with the iron grating. The two lines fated each other. Each nun bore a large lighted candle in one hand and a book in the other. They were dressed in blue over white serge. The nuns had a black shawl or napkin of black teige thrown over the head. Tlie nov- ices had a similar thing of white serge, but of the color of white flannel. Their fiices were not visible, as those cloths, which are most unromantic things, though most romantically called veils, while they miglit more suitably be called shawls, liung down so as to liide the side-face, while the front-face, which was open and unveiled, was bent down over their books. In this position they stood and read some office or service in which the lines of nuns took alternate part.«. They were motionless as statues, and might have passed for such if their voices had not proved them living. The destined nun was on her knees inside the grating. The princess Borghese was beside her, directing her maid to take oft' the tiara and other jewels; no other hands, not even the hands of the nuns, were allowed to touch a diamond : they were the jewels of the Borghese family, and the princess and her maid watched every stone till they were all carefully removed by their own hands, and deposited safely from any light fingers that might possibly be present, even in the sacred interior of a monastery of nuns. At last every diamond was gone, and then the hair— the beautiful hair, with its luxuriant tresses, its long wreathy ringlets of rich and shining chestnut— was to be cut oil'. It was the loveliest charm she possessed, and in parting witli the world, its pleasures and its sorrows together, she was to part with that which of all else attracted the admiration of men ; she meekly bowed her head to her sad destiny. Lo ! they touched it, and it was gone ! as if by a miracle it was gone! Alas, that my pen must write the truth— it was a wig ! On the present occasion the charm of the scene was dispelled by the fact that the young, the gentle, the lov- ing, the interesting object of our romance, who had just parted from the pleasures of the bright and sunny world of splendid courts and fashionable revels, was — a servant-