an establishment, as the last link in the chain of a
great ecclesiastical tradition.

In the same street, on the other side, a little below,
is something better worth your visit than the shrine
of Saint Martin. Knock at a high door in a white
wall (there is a cross above it), and a fresh-faced
sister of the convent of the Petit Saint Martin will
let you into the charming little cloister, or rather
fragment of a cloister. Only one side of this exqui-
site structure remains, but the whole place is effective.
In front of the beautiful arcade, which is terribly
bruised and obliterated, is one of those walks of inter-
laced _tilleuls_ which are so frequent in Touraine, and
into which the green light filters so softly through a
lattice of clipped twigs. Beyond this is a garden,
and beyond the garden are the other buildings of the
Convent, - where the placid sisters keep a school, - a
test, doubtless, of placidity. The imperfect arcade,
which dates from the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury (I know nothing of it but what is related in Mrs.
Pattison's "Rennaissance in France") is a truly en-
chanting piece of work; the cornice and the angles of
the arches, being covered with the daintiest sculpture
of arabesques, flowers, fruit, medallions, cherubs, griffins,
all in the finest and most attenuated relief. It is like
the chasing of a bracelet in stone. The taste, the
fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of those things
which revive our standard of the exquisite. Such
a piece of work is the purest flower of the French