The Argosy — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

48 Ten Years a Nun. Lo saree in ‘She is always my Hortense !” said M. de Forville. Hearing that, I led him at once to the room where she was waiting for him. But don't tell me that he did not feel a great shock when his eyes first fell upon her, for he turned to me with a look of almost agonized interrogation. We had done our best in making a becoming dress for her; but still she looked a subdued, faded, gentle old maid, in the place of the bnght girl of fifteen, half child and half coquette, whom he had last seen. The shock was not so great on her side; though she trembled and hesitated, and greeted him with the graceful curtsey that Frenchwomen seem bom to make. ‘There was something very strange and sad in this meeting ; something of pathos which I had not thought of beforehand ; and I ran out of the room to hide my tears, leaving the lovers alone with one another. I thought M. de Forville very quiet, and almost low-spinted, dunng the evening ; but Catherine every hour grew visibly younger before our eyes. ‘Iron sharpeneth iron ; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his fnend,” says the Bible. How much more, then, does a man sharpen the countenance of a woman? It was droll to watch the convent frost thawing, and the innocent coquetries of the woman budding out—nay, bursting into full bloom—in Sister Catherine. Her eyes sparkled, a delicate colour suffused her face, and her voice took a gayer and more musical tone. At last she laughed—a sweet, ringing, girlish laugh, as free from care as a child’s—and Pierre started as if his ear had caught some magical tone. ‘This was a creature more like his lost Hortense ; that laugh had lived in his memory these sixteen years. He bent down his head, and laid his lips reverently and tenderly upon her hand. We left the town the next day, and, to appease Catherine's trouble- some conscience, we travelled direct to Rome, where M. de Forville had already done what money and influence could do to obtain for her the Holy Father’s dispensation from her vows, which she declared to be essential to her happiness. The whole case was so plainly one of fraud, that the kindly old Pope absolved Sister Catherine without difficulty, and gave her, as a wedding gift, a rosary blessed by himself, in place of the one she had forfeited in the convent. We journeyed back to Paris, where they were married as privately as possible, to avoid causing any greater scandal than was inevitable. Since then, Madame de Forville has plunged into the gaieties of the gayest city in the world, and bids fair to become one of the leaders of fashion. There is but one hope for her. After I have been home to visit my friends, I am to return, to accompany them on a long foreign tour, which is M. de Forville’s passion. Both of them declare that I am as dear to them as a sister. My sole regret is that the Pope did not insist upon his beloved daughter, Madame la Supérieure, refunding Sister Catherine’s dowry of seven thousand pounds. COIN G NOOKS (CO)