About a month afterwards we saw the abbess’s carriage pass our house. There were three young persons in it; one we had no difficulty in perceiving was a bride, by her orange-flower wreath and long white veil—the two others were bridesmaids. In another carriage was the young priest himself, looking as happy as possible, for on that evening he was to wed Annushca the convent bride. Among the Greek clergy it is absolutely necessary that the priest should be married, but, if his wife die, he cannot wed a second, because they interpret the phrase “having one wife” in its entirely literal sense: should he have the misfortune to become a widower, he generally enters a monastery, as he can no longer have the care of a parish. The priesthood in Russia form a class almost entirely distinct from the rest of the community: they mostly intermarry among their own families, and the circle of their acquaintance is limited to those of their profession. If a clergyman have no sons, an alliance with his daughter, if there be one, is much sought after by the young unbeneficed priests, as, on her father’s death, his living becomes her dowry: it may therefore be readily imagined how many suitors are desirous of espousing a girl so portioned. Our friend the abbess frequently came to pay us a visit. She was always accompanied by one or two nuns, who treated her with extreme respect: they waited on her with great attention, and supported her as she walked to and from the carriage as if they were servants. I was told that she was a very strict disciplinarian in her convent, but, with two hundred women to govern and to keep on the road to heaven, some severity was perhaps necessary. If all the stories that I used to hear told of their backslidings were true, she had no sinecure of it, poor old lady!