Very few people would be found in the course of a day to pass out of
or into that house. A blind would seldom be raised. A fashionable
carriage would not once in a twelvemonth be seen rolling up to the
gloomy portals. Supposing, however, that any one were to be so curious
as to watch the house for an afternoon, he would probably see two
women in extraordinary dresses come up to the door, apparently laden
with some heavy packages, shrouded under their wide black cloaks. He
would see the door opened with some caution, and the two women would
then walk in, and be seen no more for that day. He might speculate for
hours about the business in which these women had been engaged, but in
vain. He might make inquiries in the neighbourhood, but probably with
as little result; for, in London, it must be an extraordinary family
indeed which provokes any inquiry among neighbours, and most
undoubtedly the inmates of the mansion would never think of
proclaiming what they were, or how they lived.

Having perhaps by this time excited some curiosity, we must endeavour
to satisfy it. We happened by mere chance, when spending an evening
with a friend in a distant part of the town, to hear of this house and
its tenants; and the doings and character of its inmates struck our
mind as something so extraordinary, and in some respects so beautiful,
that we resolved, if possible, to pay it a visit. We did so a few days
thereafter, under the conduct of a young friend, who kindly undertook
to smooth away all difficulties in the way of our reception. We can,
therefore, give some account of the dingy house, with a tolerable
assurance that, strange as the matter may appear, it is no more than
true.

This dingy house is possessed by ten women, chiefly natives of France,
who form a branch of a religious society of recent origin in that