ÉTÉ

hour which tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp,

and dropped the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the

summons to festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay

instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though of-

ten I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was not the

wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only reach it—

who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere, could she but thither

win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm

desire to look on a new thing.

A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her

through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible beside

her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood knew them.