The Argosy — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

TOE ARCS. Ten Years a Nun. 47 I never was so near fainting in my life. It seemed as if some angel from heaven was speaking a celestial language, and I had scarcely courage to answer. When I did, I do not know what I said, but there was a run downstairs, and a rapid unfastening of the door, and a hospitable rush to the gate. It was still raining heavily, but ina minute we were standing within doors, and two elderly English ladies were gazing, in unmitigated amazement, upon our bedraggled and miserable aspect. I glanced at Catherine’s abject appearance, and feeling myself safe from the perils of the night, I burst into a fit of almost hysterical laughter, in which the two ladies soon joined. They told us the next day that they had inhabited France during some years, dwelling in this little villa, just outside the town where our convent was. Catherine and IJ had returned by the very nearest route to the place from which we were flying, and it was indeed the convent- bell we had heard in the wood. We learned that our story was known, to the great mortification of the Supérieure, and was then the topic of the day in the little town. But as we did not wish to be seen, and the ladies were anxious not to embroil themselves with the priestly power, we remained secreted in their house for some time, after despatching a second letter to M. de Forville. But just realize, 1f you can, my anxiety, when day after day passed by, and no faithful Pierre arrived! I began to be gravely troubled, for what could I do with a renegade nun on my hands? As the slow days of waiting consumed themselves, her conscience, ltke most consciences in time of distress, grew outrageously sensitive; and she tormented herself and me without ceasing. I thought of my father and mother, and wondered what they would think if I had to carry Sister Catherine back with me to our English home. I went as far as a cowardly wish that I had never meddled in the loves of Pierre and Hortense de Forville ; and my brain grew almost fevered with wondering why he did not come. But all’s well that ends well. Pierre never received my first letter— posted in the letter-box near the convent—and our second, and a third, which we wrote.in our impatience, were sent after him to Rome; and, hearing from us, he started off instantly to come. He had concluded that Catherine’s profession had been made at the Féte of St. Cathemne, in December, and he had intended to be down in the town then, waiting to receive her if she quitted the convent. But all was right now he had come. I saw him first. He was no longer a “ beau cousin,” but a sunburnt, travel-worn man, nearing forty, whose hair was tinged with gray, and his forehead wrinkled, as much with trouble as with years. He looked like a rock against which many a rough billow and fretting wave had broken. But I liked him very much, and very gently I tried to prepare him for the change sixteen years had made in his cousin. COIN @ lDOOl|KS .CO©