The convent régime was not especially severe. Only the early rising was hard. They rose at 5:30, and had breakfast by candlelight—mild coffee and thick slices of bread. At ten came a between-luncheon, bread and jam; a hearty luncheon at noon, with bread and jam again at four; then supper, so they really ate five times a day. There was plenty of work: lessons, piano practice, French ... but one could walk in the little garden, and there was a tennis court, and trees. And something more: to Nell she wrote: We are going to have a play and an opera, and what do you think, they wanted me to play Kate’s father in “The Taming of the Shrew.” Can you imagine me taking that part and singing in a real low voice? But I told them I could not, and so they are going to give me a part in the play. They knew nothing of her stage life—an episode always carefully suppressed. Baggage labels were scraped off when they left New York. The stage door was slammed to. But she could not disguise her technical knowledge—not altogether. They gave her Bianca in the opera, and a leading part in the play, as soon as they saw her rehearse. Lillian confessed later that her ambition at this time was to be either an actress or a nun—or a librarian. She had a passion for reading, and thought as a librarian she could gratify it. To Nell, she wrote: “I am not going out for a month and will have to write all my letters on the sligh,”—which was a sin, though spelling it in that way seems to modify it a good deal—“and carry them in my stocking until mother comes and mails them.” Oh, dear, and in a convent, where she thought she would like to remain forever, and become a sister, like Mother Evaristo, whom she loved very much indeed! To another sister, teacher of elocution and dramatics, she confided her wish to take the veil, and was advised against it—_advised to go_ _on the stage_—which led to penance, on the part of the sister, a dear soul. Each Sunday her mother came to see her, with news of the outside world, and once a month, with the others, she was allowed to pass the gates—a privilege she valued less and less. She might so easily have become a nun; and in the tragic “White Sister,” made fourteen years later, we have seen just what sort of a nun she would have become. That picture was really a pendant of her earlier experience, which she never remembered but with a peculiar affection, and a sense of peace. During the eight or nine months she was with them, the sisters made no attempt to influence her religious views, but they were always tenderly kind to her, and always later felt that she belonged to them. * * * * *