they reached the convent walls.

Jacqueline read, and re-read mechanically, the words printed in letters
of gold on the little card Giselle had given her. It was a symbolical
picture, and very ugly; but the words were: "Oh! that I had wings like a
dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest."

"Wings!" she repeated, with vague aspiration. The aspiration seemed to
disengage her from herself, and from this earth, which had nothing more
to offer her. Ah! how far away was now the time when she had entered
churches, full of happiness and hope, to offer a candle that her prayer
might be granted, which she felt sure it would be! All was vanity! As
she gazed at the grille, behind which so many women, whose worldly lives
had been cut short, now lived, safe from the sorrows and temptations of
this world, Jacqueline seemed for the first time to understand why
Giselle regretted that she might not share forever the blessed peace
enjoyed in the convent. A torpor stole over her, caused by the dimness,
the faint odor of the incense, and the solemn silence. She imagined
herself in the act of giving up the world. She saw herself in a veil,
with her eyes raised to Heaven, very pale, standing behind the grille.
She would have to cut off her hair.

That seemed hard, but she would make the sacrifice. She would accept
anything, provided the ungrateful pair, whom she would not name, could
feel sorrow for her loss--maybe even remorse. Full of these ideas, which
certainly had little in common with the feelings of those who seek to
forgive those who trespass against them, Jacqueline continued to imagine
herself a Benedictine sister, under the soothing influence of her
surroundings, just as she had mistaken the effects of physical weakness
when she was ill for a desire to die. Such feelings were the result of a