“Jesus--Mary--Joseph!” the Porteress purred, as a Nun, with her face all muffled up in wool, crossed the Cloister, glancing neither to right nor left, and sharply slammed a door: for, already, the Convent was beginning to give signs of animation. Deep in a book of Our Lady’s Hours, a biretta’d priest was slowly rounding a garden path, while repairing from a _Grotto-sepulchre_, to which was attached a handsome indulgence, Mother Martinez de la Rosa appeared, all heavily leaning on her stick. Simultaneously the matins bell rang out, calling all to prayer. The Convent Chapel founded by the tender enthusiasm of a wealthy widow, the Countess d’Acunha, to perpetuate her earthly comradeship with the beautiful Andalusian, the Doña Dolores Baatz, was still but thinly peopled some few minutes later, although the warning bell had stopped. Peering around, Laura was disappointed not to remark Sister Ursula in her habitual place, between the veiled fresco of the “Circumcision” and the stoup of holy-water by the door. Beyond an offer to “exchange whippings” there had been a certain coolness in the greeting with her friend, that had both surprised and pained her. “When those we rely on wound and betray us, to whom should we turn but Thee?” she breathed, addressing a crucifix, in ivory, contrived by love, that was a miracle of wonder. Finished Mass, there was a general rush for the Refectory! Preceded by Sister Clothilde, and followed, helter-skelter, by an exuberant bevy of nuns, even Mother Martinez, who being shortsighted would go feeling the ground with her cane, was propelled to the measure of a hop-and-skip. Passing beneath an archway, labelled “Silence” (the injunction to-day being undoubtedly ignored), the company was welcomed by the mingled odours of tea, _consommé_, and fruit. It was a custom of the Convent for one of the Sisters during meal-time to read aloud from some standard work of fideism, and these edifying recitations, interspersed by such whispered questions as: “Tea, or _Consommé_?” “A Banana, or a Pomegranate?” gave to those at all foolishly, or hysterically inclined, a painful desire to giggle. Mounting the pulpit-lectern, a nun with an aristocratic, though gourmand little face, was about to resume the arid life of the Byzantine monk, Basilius Saturninus, when Mother Martinez de la Rosa took it upon herself, in a few patriotic words, to relax all rules for that day. “We understand in the world now,” a little faded woman murmured to Laura upon her right: “that the latest craze among ladies is to gild their tongues; but I should be afraid,” she added diffidently, dipping her banana into her tea, “of poison, myself!” Unhappy at her friend’s absence from the Refectory, Laura, however, was in no mood to entertain the nuns with stories of the present pagan tendencies of society.