the Black Nunnery. She told me she must make some inquiries, before she
could give me a decided answer; and proposed to me to take up my abode a
few days at the house of a French family in St. Lawrence suburbs, a
distant part of the city. Here I remained about a fortnight; during
which time I formed some acquaintance with the family, particularly with
the mistress of the house, who was a devoted Papist, and had a high
respect for the Superior, with whom she stood on good terms.

At length, on Saturday morning about ten o'clock, I called and was
admitted into the Black Nunnery, as a novice, much to my satisfaction,
for I had a high idea of a life in a Convent, secluded, as I supposed
the inmates to be, from the world and all its evil influences, and
assured of everlasting happiness in heaven. The Superior received me,
and conducted me into a large room, where the novices, (who are called
in French Postulantes,) were assembled, and engaged in their customary
occupation of sewing.

Here were about forty of them, and they were collected in groups in
different parts of the room, chiefly near the windows; but in each group
was found one of the veiled nuns of the Convent, whose abode was in the
interior apartments, to which no novice was to be admitted. As we
entered, the Superior informed the assembly that a new novice had come,
and she desired any present who might have known me in the world to
signify it.

Two Miss Fougnees, and a Miss Howard, from Vermont, who had been my
fellow-pupils in the Congregational Nunnery, immediately recognised me.
I was then placed in one of the groups, at a distance from them, and
furnished by a nun called Sainte Clotilde, with materials to make a kind
of purse, such as the priests use to carry the consecrated wafer in,