Instances of novices quitting the convent during the year of probation are extremely rare. The ceremony of taking the veil is too solemn, and bears too much the character of a public engagement, to allow full liberty of choice during the subsequent noviciate. The timid mind of a girl shrinks from the idea of appearing again in the world, under the tacit reproach of fickleness and relaxed devotion. The nuns, besides, do not forget their arts during the nominal trial of the victim, and she lives a whole year the object of their caresses. Nuns, in fact, who, after profession, would have given their lives for a day of free breathing out of their prison, it has been my misfortune to know; but I cannot recollect more than one instance of a novice quitting the convent; and that was a woman of obscure birth, on whom public opinion had no influence. That many nuns, especially in the more liberal convents, live happy, I have every reason to believe; but, on the other hand, I possess indubitable evidence of the exquisite misery which is the lot of some unfortunate females, under similar circumstances. I shall mention only one case, in actual existence, with which I am circumstantially acquainted. A lively and interesting girl of fifteen, poor, though connected with some of the first gentry in this town, having received her education under an aunt who was at the head of a wealthy, and not austere, Franciscan convent, came out, as the phrase is, _to see the world_, previous to her taking the veil. I often met the intended novice at the house of one of her relations, where I visited daily. She had scarcely been a fortnight out of the cloister, when that world she had learned to abhor in description, was so visibly and rapidly winning her affections, that at the end of three months she could hardly disguise her aversion to the veil. The day, however, was now fast approaching which had been fixed for the ceremony, without her feeling sufficient resolution to decline it. Her father, a good but weak man, she knew too well, could not protect her from the ill-treatment of an unfeeling mother, whose vanity was concerned in thus disposing of a daughter for whom she had no hopes of finding a suitable match. The kindness of her aunt, the good nun to whom the distressed girl was indebted for the happiness of her childhood, formed, besides, too strong a contrast with the unkindness of the unnatural mother, not to give her wavering mind a strong though painful bias towards the cloister. To this were added all the arts of pious seduction so common among the religious of both sexes. The preparations for the approaching solemnity were, in the mean time, industriously carried on with the greatest publicity. Verses were circulated, in which her confessor sang the triumph of Divine Love over the wily suggestions of the _impious_. The _wedding-dress_ was shewn to every acquaintance, and due notice of the appointed day was given to friends and relatives.