A CONVENT FLOWER

One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her
cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society
when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a
little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could
condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed
as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity--a Gray
Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of her
somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than stimulated,
by the education she had received.

The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank of
the Seine, all gardens and hotels--that is, detached houses. Grass
sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no street-
lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The petals of
an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped, like flakes
of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the springtime.

The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one
side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into the
convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old
nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was
striving to put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein
Schult, who had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps renew
the odious subject. Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed like
going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed
her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far away; it was
a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young soul, pure and
white, had floated, without rapture, but without any great grief or pain.