years when I visited them; my curiosity being excited by the current
reports of the severities to which their order subjected them in the
habitual discipline of the convent. The day selected for the visit was
quite in harmony with the objects in view; a cold, bleak, cloudy morning,
which terminated in rain, without a single ray of the sun to enliven a
December gloom. Mr., now Cardinal, Weld was paying his temporal and
spiritual devotions at the Quirinal Palace and the shrine of St. Peter;
but, in the absence of the family from Lulworth, his huntsman regularly
exercised a small pack of harriers round the neighbouring hills among the
goss covers, for the amusement of a few sportsmen and his own profit.
Three of us proceeded one morning to enjoy our customary diversion; but
the bleakness of the wind which swept the hills overlooking the sea
induced the huntsman to keep the hounds at home, and we, in consequence,
determined to make up for our disappointment by riding over to Lulworth.
In summer, this little retired spot is an object of attraction, from its
romantic cove and fine castle; while many parties, doubtless, are drawn
there by the savoury idea of boiled lobsters, usually provided for their
refreshment at the small public-house of the village; where "mine host"
was wont to rivet the attention of the juvenile portions of his guests
especially, while the older refused him not their ears, to tales of the
castle and the convent, about which, as in most Catholic families of
distinction, and among religious institutions, there hung a cloud of
mystery, which the young votaries of worldly enjoyments love to penetrate.

Leaving our horses at the inn, we walked directly up to the convent
situated a little way beyond the village, impressed with feelings which
the stories we had heard unavoidably excited. Nor were these feelings
diminished by the gloomy solitude and silence of the scenery around,
interrupted only by the howling wind and the roaring of the waves, which
beat against the precipitous rocks surrounding the cove, and sustaining