He has (very justly) asserted that there is no such word as "reliable," and that the word "transpired" is a vulgarism. Perhaps the only occasion on which the editor thoroughly unbends, is during the precious hour he devotes to wading through the questions from correspondents, and the letters addressed to himself. He bubbles with delight on receiving the familiar queries, "Is Liverpool a seaport?" "Does upwards of a hundred mean more or less than a hundred?" Letters to the editor in this style also make him squirm:

"Dear Sir, I want your advice. For twenty years I have taken your valuable paper; and yesterday my wife eloped with the lodger.

"Yours,

"A CONSTANT READER."

"Dear Sir,-I notice that you are receiving letters about the early arrival of the cuckoo. I heard the cuckoo fifteen years ago.

"Yours,

"FLATHEAD.”

"Dear Sir, I am now in this city, and in three days you will hear of another crime. "Yours,

"JACK THE RIPPER."

The above letter is sent two or three times a year by some lunatic, who adds that he has "a buzzing in his head." The note is generally written in red ink, to represent blood, and bears as a crest a human heart pierced by a stiletto.

The editor needs a good deal of selfcontrol, patience, and loving kindness to make his life tolerable; but there is one department of his paper in which he can vent indignation and venom long smothered. He can let it prance and sting all through the reviews of books. That he seldom yields to the temptation proves that he has a noble nature. Marie Corelli has worked herself into a white heat of anger against all editors and reviewers. She writes: "The

of the book, but on the disposition of the reviewer." Does she not take these long-suffering men too seriously? They are doomed to struggle through thousands of pages of arrant rubbish, and it is their piteous task, not only to review books, but to notice a heap of things the advertising genius sends. "The Sorrows of Satan" are trivial compared to "The Sorrows of the Editor." The latter, unlike the former, means well, but his temper is sorely tried when he is obliged to review bagatelle boards, rubber tyres, and barrel organs. He should be gently thought of, even in the savage mood that prompts him to write of the poet: "He does not understand English, and is ignorant of the

mechanics of blank verse;" or of the novelist. "He kindly warns us that another book from the same pen will appear next month;" or of the short-story teller: "It is possible that five tales marked with a richer, deeper vulgarity have never before been given to the world."

The editor moves in a vortex of conflicting interests, and perhaps fails, now and then, to accurately gauge the motives of the people with whom he comes in contact; but he invariably gives fair play, and can recognize good work. He puts his mind and physique into his own duty, and fills a positiou of great responsibility honestly and fearlessly. He is zealous for his party, works unstintingly for many good objects and bears himself like a Saladin against shams. He has one vanity: he is proud of the place he occupies. He has the spirit of John Black, who envied no one. "You are the only journalist who forgets that I am prime minister," said Lord Melbourne to that pressman. "How so, my lord?" inquired Black. "Because you never ask a favor of me." "I have no favor to ask," Black retorted. "You are the prime minister of England; but I am the editor of the Morning Chronicle, and I would not change places with the proudest man in England-not even, my lord, with you!"

JOHN PENdleton.

lovely bits of sculpture and statuary, little Amors and Bacchuses, for the most part, for he who designed the place had evidently no thought in his mind of its ever being turned into a convent. As I entered, the gate seemed to close behind me quite of its own accord; it locked itself, too, with a little sharp click which was decidedly uncanny. I had no time, however, for nervous sensations, as at that moment the superior advanced to meet me, and bade me welcome with the most winning courtesy and kindness.

A special turret containing three rooms was, I found, set apart for my use; as, owing to one of the rules of the order, I might neither sleep under the same roof as the nuns, nor share their meals. I was soon installed in my new abode, and then I began to realize what living in a convent means. At first the stillness of the place was terrible; it was so intense that one could feel it as if it were in itself a force that paralyzed and deadened. For the hour together there was not a sound to be heard, not even a footstep, or the flutter of a bird's wing, until at length a sort of numbness would creep over one, and a strange fear that the world had come to a standstill. Then, just from time to time, as if to render the silence more profound by the contrast, the little convent bell would begin ringing; and the mountains would seize up every stroke it gave and echo it back with a sound as weirdly mournful as the cries of the lost. I had counted on the convent's being quiet and restful, but I had never conceived of such quiet as this; I had travelled nearly a thousand miles in the hope of finding there that peace we all dream of, and clamor for at times. And find it I did, and it stifled me. If I had not known that I could escape from it at any moment, it would have driven me wild in those early days.

From my window I could see yachts cruising about in the bay; and I knew that quite close at hand, just hidden behind a hill, was a busy little town with shops and hotels and even an esplanade. Yet there seemed to be a great gulf between the world outside

the convent walls and that which lay within; and my own feeling was, that I was as far away from my kind as if I had been in the Sahara. The loneliness of life in this convent, during the first week I was there, was only one degree less appalling than its silence. I had brought with me books of every sort and description; but, oddly enough, I could not read a line of them; for they all belonged to those far-away regions with which, for the time at least, I had nothing in common. As for writing, that was completely out of the question, for the mere scratching of pen on paper seemed to smack of sacrilege. Thus I had no outside aid whatever wherewith to battle against that everlasting stillness which shut me in on every side. It was as if I had drifted away from all that I cared for and stood quite alone in the world. And a ghastly experience it was. Those mediæval ladies were evidently of stouter stuff than we are.

After the first week, however, things improved; gradually my sense of isolation became less acute, and I began to realize that, with beautiful surroundings and a sun that shines all day, life after all is not such a very terrible business even though there be no one at hand with whom to exchange a greeting. Creature comforts, too, always make their influence to be felt sooner or later; and the convent cook, though a nun, was a veritable cordon bleu. Besides, the superior when she saw that I had made up my mind to stay for the appointed time, took pity on me, and used to come in to see me just now and then. She indulged in much gentle merriment at my expense, when she found how miserable I had been. As time passed, too, the nuns, in their long, trailing, black gowns, seemed a touch less ghostly, as they flitted up and down the terraces with their rosaries in their hands; and at length I summoned courage to address one of them whom I encountered in the garden. She met my advances most cordially, and, to my infinite surprise, talked away in the most voluble fashion. And little wonder either, for, as I soon

one and only person to whom she could talk. The nuns are forbidden to address each other excepting during the recreation hour; but they may chatter as much as they like to strangers. When she drew up this rule, the founder of the order was no doubt under the impression that there would be no stranger in the convent for them to chatter to. They certainly made the most of the chance my visit afforded them; during the two months it lasted, they probably talked more than during the previous ten years. As soon as they knew that they could count on a welcome, every moment's leisure they had was spent in paying me visits-just for the pleasure of hearing a human voice it seemed to me. Before long I was well acquainted with them all, and very interesting women they are some of them.

This community numbered then some forty members, the eldest of whom was above ninety, and the youngest well under twenty. There were among them women of the most varied types, yet they almost all bore a family resemblance to each other, for they had the same compressed, self-restrained look in their faces, as if they could not, even if they would, let themselves go. There was the same monotonous ring, too, in most of their voices, and a certain indefinable something about them that made one think instinctively of a machine. Some of them had spent practically their whole lives in the convent, had been sent there straight from school; because, being richer in ancestors than in guineas, the task of finding eligible partis for them seemed hopeless. Others, and they the great majority, had sought a refuge there of their own free will, and only after giving the outside world a trial. Not a few had set their friends at defiance by going there, and had left behind them both wealth and rank.

The superior, who is of a French Légitimiste family, is one of the most beautiful old ladies I have ever seen. She is slight and fragile, and has a low,

caressing manner. The expression of her face is quite other-worldish in its serenity; to look at her one would think she was as ignorant as the angels of this world and its ways. But never were appearances more deceptive. Delicate as she seems, she is as strong as a horse, and boasts that she has never had a day's illness. With all her sweet, deprecative manner she has a will of iron, and rules her community wisely and beneficently, but as the veriest autocrat. She makes her influence to be felt far and wide; great ladies consult her upon all occasionsher constant visitor, when I knew her best, was an Orleanist princess-and bishops and even cardinals are said to seek her advice. And therein they show their wisdom, for she is certainly an amazingly clever woman-shrewd, practical and with plenty of sound common sense. She thinks clearly, acts righteously, and has a perfect genius for organization. Although more than thirty years have elapsed since she quitted the world, she is in close touch with it even to-day. She is keenly interested in politics and knows to a nicety the state of parties in every capital in Europe. To hear her talk of English statesmen and their measures one would imagine she had spent her whole life in London; yet she is equally well acquainted with the doings of their confrères in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin. How she obtains her information even those who live with her have no idea, but it is certainly not by reading-I never saw her with a book in her hand. Then she follows closely all the social movements of the day, and has clearly defined opinions on artistic and the Index notwithstanding-literary subjects. Her conversation is quite delightful, terse, bright, and witty, yet always kindly in tone in spite of its little undercurrent of mockery. I have often wondered what could have induced such a woman to bury herself in a convent; and when I once suggested to her that by so doing she had made the world the poorer, her answer was an odd little laugh.

The most talented woman in the convent, with the exception of the superior, is Sister Hélène, the daughter of a well-known agnostic of the aggressive type. She was brought up in the strictest tenets of the "L'Eglise: voilà l'ennemi" school; and was taught from her earliest days to look on priests and nuns as being much on a par with charlatans. Her father, who was proud of her keen wits and sharp tongue, and who had trained her himself for the fight, used to boast that clericalism would find in her some day a formidable opponent. When she was twentytwo he declared she was the only woman he had ever met with who did not understand the meaning of the word superstition. Then she was summoned away from Paris to tend an aunt who was dying, and spent some three months in a remote country district. What occurred while she was there no one knows; but, on her return home, she calmly informed her father that she had made up her mind to be baptized! If she had said she was going to murder all the crowned heads in Europe she would not have excited more consternation. A battle royal followed, for she and her father were all in all to each other, and the ground had to be fought inch by inch. It lasted a whole year, but Hélène never wavered; she left the old man to die alone and sought peace for herself in the convent. She was a cold, hard woman when I knew her, a propagandist by nature I should say. While talking to her I always felt as if I were in a witness-box undergoing cross-examination at the hands of a counsel who knew much more about me than I knew myself. She has done good service, I hear, by her writings for the cause she has espoused.

Strange to say these nuns, taking them as a whole, are above the average in point of looks. Several of them are decidedly handsome, and two Sister Christine and Sister Bernadette-are strikingly beautiful. Sister Christine is one of those women of whom the lily is an emblem. She is tall and slight and has golden hair and a face

a Greek sculptor might have dreamed of. There is a weary, troubled look though in her large, blue eyes; and she never tries to conceal the fact that she has lost all hope of finding anything worth having on this side of the grave. I never saw her smile but once, and that was when she told me the doctors were sure she would be gone before another Christmas came round. She was betrothed, it seems, to a man whom she worshipped her own cousin whom she had chosen for herself out of a crowd of suitors; for not only was she a beauty, but a great heiress. And on the very morning of her weddingday he had eloped with her nearest relative-a plain-looking woman of thirty, who had already a husband!

Sister Bernadette is Irish by descent, by nature, too, to her finger ends, and she has real Irish blue eyes. I should not be very much surprised if she doffed her convent trappings some day or other, for, although she seems fairly well content with her lot, she was never intended to be a nun. Besides it was all owing to a mistake that she ever went to the convent. Her lover was drowned before her eyes, only a stone'sthrow away from where she was standing, within a week from the day appointed for their marriage. In the first paroxysm of her grief she insisted on entering the convent; for she was firmly convinced that her heart was broken, convinced, too, that she had only a few months to live. She was threatened with consumption in those days. Under the sunny Italian skies, however, she took a new lease of life; and then, as time passed, she woke up to the fact that, though hearts may be bruised, they don't break. All that could be done she did to cherish her grief; she clung to it, fondled it, made much of it, but if the fates had wished her to play a tragic rôle they should have made her in a different mould. When I made her acquaintance she was one of the brightest and cheeriest of little mortals, bubbling over with the mere joie de vivre. She cracked jokes low down to herself, I verily believe, even when she was going