A few weeks after the events just related, another trifling occurrence brought me into collision with the Abbess. And here let me remark that I have no way, by which to ascertain at what particular time certain events transpired. The reader will understand that I write this narrative from memory, and our life at the nunnery was so monotonous, the days and weeks passed by with such dull, and irksome uniformity, that sometimes our frequent punishments were the only memorable events to break in upon the tiresome sameness of our unvarying life. Of course the most simple thing was regarded by us as a great event, something worthy of special notice, because, for the time, it diverted our minds from the peculiar restraints of our disagreeable situation. To illustrate this remark let me relate an incident that transpired about this time. I was one day sent to a part of the house where I was not in the habit of going. I was passing along a dark hall, when a ray of light from an open door fell upon my path. I looked up, and as the door at that moment swung wide open, I saw, before a glass, in a richly furnished room, the most beautiful woman I ever beheld. From the purity of her complexion, and the bright color of her cheeks and lips, I could have taken her for a piece of wax work, but for the fact that she was carelessly arranging her hair. She was tall, and elegant in person, with a countenance of such rare and surpassing beauty, I involuntarily exclaimed, "What a beautiful woman!" She turned towards me with a smile of angelic sweetness, while an expression of sympathetic emotion overspread her exquisitely moulded features, which seemed to say as plainly as though she had spoken in words, "Poor child, I pity you." I now became conscious that I was breaking the rules of the house, and hastened away. But O, how many days my soul fed on that smile! I never saw the lady again, her name I could never know, but that look of tenderness will never be forgotten. It was something to think of through many dreary hours, something to look back to, and be grateful for, all the days of my life.