The abode assigned to the Ursulines until a monastery could be built for them, contained only two apartments, the larger of which, sixteen feet square, served at once as choir, parlour, refectory and common dormitory; the second was reserved for the school-room. A little shed near the house was fitted up as a chapel, and although so very poor as forcibly to recall the stable of Bethlehem, it was precious to them beyond words to tell, for there the adorable Sacrifice was henceforth daily offered, and there too at all times dwelt quite close to them in the Sacrament of His love, the Divine Spouse for whose sake they had renounced themselves and all things here below. A wooden palisade round the dwelling supplied the place of cloister walls. In this most miserable abode they spent three years, amidst unimaginable privations and inconveniences, exposed to extreme cold in winter, and overpowering heat in summer; breathing the air vitiated by a crowd of Indians, whose uncleanly habits are proverbial, and whose very clothes exhaled a sickening odour. When the children presented themselves at the school for the first time, their attire was scanty, and of the coarsest materials. They wore a mass of tangled hair, guiltless since first it began to grow, of all acquaintance with scissors, brush or comb, and they were covered all over with a greasy substance, which to judge from the care employed in laying it on, must have been deemed an indispensable finishing touch to the juvenile Indian's toilet. To bring that untidy hair into order, and to remove that personal adornment, unsightly in appearance, as unattractive in aroma, became a question of privilege. The Foundress claimed it as her right, because as she said, she was fit for nothing else, but others thought themselves entitled to the honour too, so finally a compromise was agreed on, and all had their turn. The children's uncivilized ways must no doubt have at first occasioned many a mortification to the Sisters; for instance, the Mother of the Incarnation tells us that they daily found some disgusting mixture in their food, a bunch of hair, a handful of cinders, or even an old shoe being no uncommon addition to the ordinary ingredients, yet so completely did grace triumph over nature in these Christian heroines, that unsavoury as was the seasoning of their soup, and countless as were the discomforts of their position, they enjoyed indescribable happiness in their poverty, and preferred their humble lodging with its uncouth inmates, to the grandest mansion without them. Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of a palace, compared with that of a soul? CHAPTER II.