In the morning, of course, I was as brave as a lion and much amused
at the cold perspirations of the night before; but even the nights
seem to me now to have been delightful, and myself like those historic
boys who heard a voice in every wind and snatched a fearful joy.
I would gladly shiver through them all over again for the sake of
the beautiful purity of the house, empty of servants and upholstery.

How pretty the bedrooms looked with nothing in them but their cheerful
new papers! Sometimes I would go into those that were finished and
build all sorts of castles in the air about their future and their past.
Would the nuns who had lived in them know their little white-washed
cells again, all gay with delicate flower papers and clean white paint?
And how astonished they would be to see cell No. 14 turned into a bathroom,
with a bath big enough to insure a cleanliness of body equal to their
purity of soul! They would look upon it as a snare of the tempter;
and I know that in my own case I only began to be shocked at the blackness
of my nails the day that I began to lose the first whiteness of my soul
by falling in love at fifteen with the parish organist, or rather with
the glimpse of surplice and Roman nose and fiery moustache which was all I
ever saw of him, and which I loved to distraction for at least six months;
at the end of which time, going out with my governess one day,
I passed him in the street, and discovered that his unofficial garb
was a frock-coat combined with a turn-down collar and a "bowler" hat,
and never loved him any more.

The first part of that time of blessedness was the most perfect, for I
had not a thought of anything but the peace and beauty all round me.
Then he appeared suddenly who has a right to appear when and how
he will and rebuked me for never having written, and when I told him
that I had been literally too happy to think of writing, he seemed