Such was the original intention of these apartments, and the destination of the institution altogether; but we well know how every thing entrusted to human management here is corrupted in process of time. The rooms which at first had been furnished simply, were soon decked with every sort of ornament; the visiter's table, as it was called, was separated from the ordinary board of the refectory; cooks and wine-growers did their best to gratify the palate; and, with the exception of the vowed nuns, those who sought shelter in the convent of the Black Penitents were condemned to but little abstinence, and knew only this difference from the world in general, that they had an opportunity of escaping obtrusive society when they thought fit. It was in one then of the handsomest apartments of the building--to speak truth, one far handsomer than that occupied by the Queen-mother herself--that Marie de Clairvaut made her abode during the time she was confined in that building. No great restraint, indeed, was put upon her; but the word confinement was justified by the measures taken to prevent her quitting the convent, or holding communication with any one but the nuns themselves. To this apartment the Prioress led her back again, after putting an end to her interview with Charles of Montsoreau, and though the good lady herself was by no means entirely weaned from the affections of this world, she thought it but befitting to read Mademoiselle de Clairvaut a brief lecture on the necessity of attaching herself to higher objects, and an exhortation to abandon earthly attachments, and dedicate herself to the service of Heaven. She hinted, indeed, that there could not be an order more worthy of entering into than the one of which she was an unworthy member; nor, indeed, one in which so many of the little pleasures of life could be combined with deep devotion. Marie de Clairvaut was, at that moment, far more inclined to weep than smile; but it was scarcely possible not to feel amused at the exhortation of the Prioress; and certainly the greater degree of knowledge which the young lady had lately acquired of conventual life would have banished from her mind all desire to take those irrevocable vows which she had once looked forward to with pleasure, even if love had not long before driven all such purposes from her mind.