By Agnes Repplier IN OUR CONVENT DAYS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, _net._ Postage extra. COMPROMISES, 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, _net._ Postage 9 cents. THE FIRESIDE SPHINX. With 4 full-page and 17 text Illustrations by Miss E. BONSALL. 12mo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 14 cents. BOOKS AND MEN. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. POINTS OF VIEW. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. ESSAYS IN IDLENESS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. IN THE DOZY HOURS, AND OTHER PAPERS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. ESSAYS IN MINIATURE. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. A BOOK OF FAMOUS VERSE. Selected by Agnes Repplier. In Riverside Library for Young People. 16mo, 75 cents; _Holiday Edition_, 16mo, fancy binding, $1.25. VARIA. 16mo, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. IN OUR CONVENT DAYS IN OUR CONVENT DAYS BY AGNES REPPLIER, LITT.D. [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1905 COPYRIGHT 1905 BY AGNES REPPLIER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published October 1905_ To "Elizabeth" Robins Pennell "Thou know'st that we two went to school together." JULIUS CÆSAR Introduction It has been many years since I went to school. Everything has changed in the Convent that I loved, and I am asked to believe that every change is for the better. I do not believe this at all. I am unmoved by the sight of steam registers and electric lights. I look with disfavour upon luxuries which would have seemed to us like the opulence of Aladdin's palace. I cannot wax enthusiastic over the intrusion of Mr. Matthew Arnold and Mr. Pater upon the library shelves, where Chambers' Miscellany used to be _our_ nearest approach to the intellectual. The old order changes, and that unlovely word, modernity, is heard within the tranquil convent walls. Even the iron hand of discipline has been relaxed; for the long line of girls whom I now watch filing sedately in and out of the chapel have been taught to rule themselves, to use their wider liberty with discretion. I wonder how they like it. I wonder if liberty, coupled with discretion, is worth having when one is eleven years old. I wonder if it be the part of wisdom to be wise so soon.