Dénice was our only playmate. I don't know what her other name was or whether she had any, but I have fancied since that she might have been a daughter of some unhappy Protestant family, torn from her parents by the cruel hand of persecutors and shut up at St. Jean to be made a good Catholic. Such things were common enough in those days. She was a thin dark child, shy and shrinking in her manners with her elders, but a capital playfellow and the best of story tellers. She was three or four years older than Amabel and myself, and had great influence over us, which she always used for good. A better child never breathed, and her early death was my first real grief. Our household consisted, beside the pupils whom I have mentioned, of about eighteen members in all— First of course came the Abbess. She was a middle-aged lady when I first knew her, and very handsome but worn with cares, fasts, and vigils, and so bent she looked much beyond her real age. I have nothing but good to say of her. I think it likely from what I now remember that she was not without a tinge of that spiritual pride which is nurtured by nothing more than by the voluntary humiliations required by the Roman church within all religious persons so-called. But as a ruler of her family, nobody could be more just, firm, and kind. She allowed herself no indulgences that were not shared by the rest of the community, and as I believe often denied herself absolutely necessary food and clothing to add to the comfort of the old and feeble members of the household. She was an excellent manager, overseeing everything, yet not like many notable women wasting her time in doing work which belonged to other people. While I believe she knew to a single olive and a single ounce of wool everything which her fields produced, she did not interfere vexatiously with the sisters who had charge of these things, but allowed them to manage in their own way. We little ones went to her for an hour every day to receive a special religious instruction, and she used to make these hours very pleasant, dismissing us usually with a bit of cake or fruit or some other little treat. We children at least adored her.