The Argosy — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

36 i aneto TEN YEARS A NUN. By HeEsBA STRETTON. | OU wish to hear in full detail an account of my sojourn and adventure in a French Convent, of which you have only re- ceived the incomplete and unsatisfactory outlines. I went to France, as you know, against the wishes of my family and friends, having accepted a situation in a school there as English teacher. It is enough to say about that school, that no decent English girl could have stayed, so utter was the dirt, discomfort, and barbarism pervading it. I was compelled to leave it, but I was extremely reluctant to quit France without accomplishing my object, which was to perfect myself in the language; more especially as my friends had objected to the enterprise from the first. I travelled back, however, from the intenor to a small sea-port town, from which the transit to England was easy ; and during my journey I took counsel with myself, and calculated my remaining stock of money, amounting to a little more than twenty-six pounds. I had made up my mind before I reached the terminus, and there I inquired if there was any English consul in the town. Certainly there was, at least a vice-consul ; and, for the small consideration of half a franc, a polite porter conducted me to his office. I entered it with some diffiidence, and confronted three clerks, seated at the orthodox high desks, who bestowed upon me the orthodox, clerkly stare. The vice- consul was summoned, and proved to be a German, who spoke English and French with equally amusing blunders. However, he was all kindness, and after due deliberation, he asked if I should object to go into aconvent. I felt a slight shock at first, but a few minutes’ thought decided me to go, and I said so. In that case, he replied, he could be of service to me, for without doubt he could obtain my ad- mission into a convent in the town on the morrow. In the meantime, he would see me safely lodged in an hotel for the night. I must pass over my night alone in a foreign hotel, though there 1s a good deal I might tell you about it. In the moming the vice-consul came as appointed, and told me that I could be received into the con- vent for two pounds a month. The terms suited my means, as you see, and I accepted them gladly; so I gave twenty pounds into his hands, asking him to call each month and pay the sum agreed upon. I went with him to the convent, in a mood of cheerful alacrity, with my sense comicaocks (CO) my