Alas! This morning, when I saw beneath the veil those noble features, I could not refrain from thinking how beautiful she looked the day of our marriage; it seemed that our happiness was reflected on her face. As I told you, I saw her this morning. She does not know that to-morrow the Princess Juliana resigns her abbatical dignity, and that she has been unanimously chosen to succeed her. Since the beginning of her novitiate there has been but one opinion of her piety, her charity, and the exactitude with which she fulfils all the rules of the order; she even exaggerates their austerity. She exercises in the convent that authority she exercised everywhere, but of which she herself is ignorant. She confessed to me this morning that she is not so absorbed by her religious duties as to forget the past. "I accuse myself, dear father," said she, "because I cannot help reflecting that, had Heaven pleased to spare me the degradation that has stained my life, I might have lived happily with you and my husband. Spite of myself, I reflect on this, and on what passed in the Cite. In vain I beseech Heaven to deliver me from these temptations,--to fill my heart with himself; but he does not hear my prayers, doubtless because my life has rendered me unworthy of communion with him." "But," cried I, clinging to this faint glimmer of hope, "it is not yet too late; your novitiate is only over to-day; you are yet free. Renounce this austere life, dwell again with us, and our tenderness shall soften your grief." Shaking her head sorrowfully, she replied: "The cloister is, indeed, solitary for me, accustomed as I have been to your tender care; doubtless cruel recollections come over me, but I am consoled by the knowledge that I am performing my duty. I know that everywhere else I should be liable to be placed in that position in which I have already suffered so much. Your daughter shall do what she ought to do, suffer what she ought to suffer." Without founding any great hopes on this interview, I yet said to myself, "She can renounce the cloister. But as she is determined, I can but repeat her words, 'God alone can offer me a refuge worthy of himself.'" Adieu, dear Clemence! It consoles me to see you grieve with me, for I can say 'our' child without egotism in my sufferings. Often this thought lightens my sorrow, for you are left to me, and what is left to Fleur-de-Marie? Adieu again; return soon. R. ABBEY OF STE. HERMANGELD. Four o'clock in the morning. Reassure yourself, Clemence! Thank God, the danger is over, but the crisis was terrible!