vessel was obliged to put in for repairs. There were several English ships in the bay, and among these one, aboard of which was Frank Hanson; when I found him out, after much questioning and answering on both sides, for the young man had totally forgotten that I had ever entrusted him with a letter, I had the pleasure of seeing him produce my epistle, in high preservation, from the secret recess of his red morocco pocket book; this same letter having not only accompanied him to London, but having been brought back by him to his ship, and returned with him as far as the Azores. My young friend made me a thousand apologies, but what could they avail, or what could my complaints avail; and if I returned to my ship with increased agitation and some ill humour, some allowances perhaps may be made for me. But, my worthy reader, I charge you never to trust a letter of consequence to a private hand, and remember to put your letters with your own hands into the post office whenever there is money to be paid with them. Indeed I ought to have known better; for I should have remembered that, some years ago, at Nice, I had sent a letter to the post office, directed to a friend in London; Nice being only four miles from France, the postage is one penny; this small sum my messenger purloined, putting my letter in the box. Three weeks afterwards I received a letter from my friend in London, stating that he had received a notification from the post office, Nice, informing him that a letter to his address was lying in the office at Nice for the want of the penny. The postage of this notification, &c. independent of the disappointment, came to five shillings and two pence, and the letter still at Nice. However, to return to my story:-from that time every moment was an hour to me, till I had set my foot on the shores of France; and still the delays were cruelly frequent; in short, we made so tedious a passage, and met with such a variety of hindrances, that twelve months had elapsed from the date of Mary's letter till my arrival at Marseilles; and then I had passports to procure, and a journey of some length by land; and the dreadful idea had recurred to me, that my poor child, in a fit of enthusiasm, had been persuaded to take the white veil soon after her friend took the black one, her year having been just expired before I could reach her. Then I remembered, for the first time, my indiscreet and ridiculous piece of confidence to the superior, respecting Mary's immense fortune of 100,000 francs, and the artful question of the lady, to wit, whether I could not deprive her of this property should she offend me? Oh! how did the recollection of this folly humble me in my own eyes, and how did I lament my child as lost, lost to me, and how lost! that indeed was a miserable time, but I required it all; it was good for me to be thus afflicted. I At length, however, I arrived at Marseilles. travelled day and night, and reached Nice on a Sunday morning, about seven o'clock. The Croix de Marbre, that long street or suburb of the town, on the side leading from the Var, seemed to lengthen before me as we drove along; but as we stopped for a moment to speak to some one at the foot of the new bridge over the Paglion, the sound of many bells tolling from the steeples of the various churches, and calling the people to the idolatrous service of the mass, raised me to agony, and surely I must have appeared like a person deranged, when I sprang out from the carriage in the court of the Hotel des Etrangers, and called impetuously for a guide to shew me the shortest way to the convent of Sainte Claire. A guide soon presented himself, but not before I had time to ascertain that the landlord was not the same whom I had formerly known. It was of no use therefore to ask any ques tions of him. I bade the guide to hasten, and I followed him, or rather ran by his side. But I become impatient as I write, and can hardly restrain my pen sufficiently to preserve clearness in my narrative. The convent of Sainte Claire is situated on the same hill where is the fort of Nice, and where the old tower once stood. The approach to it is through several gloomy narrow streets, which are also very steep. The side of the church of the convent faces down the street, and one of the doors of the church opens in that direction; but the portal of the convent is on the right, forming an angle with the wall of the church; it is raised by several steps. The guide led me straight to the portal, and the outer door was open into a vestibule, from which several passages diverged. A young woman dressed in black, but not as a nun, met us at the portal, and I, all impatience, asked if I might see the superior immediately. "I cannot tell, sir," she replied, looking hard at me; and a young priest appearing at the same time from a passage communicating with the chapel, she repeated my question to him, on which he replied"Madame is engaged, but after the service she will see the gentleman." "What service?" I said; "what are they doing?" No answer was made, but both parties returned whither they had come. "What service?" I said, repeating my question to the guide. "Monsieur is at liberty to enter the church," he replied; "the doors are open." He led the way; I followed him; I hardly knew what I did; before I approached the open door of the church, I was aware of the melancholy monotonous sound of the recitative proceeding from the priests, who were chanting one of their services; but my guide went forward, and I advanced, still following him. I had formerly visited the superior in her parlour, but I had never been in |