hesitate, under the circumstances, to pronounce it an act of gratuitous
cruelty. Of all pangs that can assail a human heart, none transcends
that of learning the worthlessness of those we love; and to lay this
burden, which has crushed and crazed the strongest natures, upon the
tender heart of a child, was little less than murderous. Nor can
the motive assigned justify an act so cruel; since modern morality
increasingly teaches that the means must justify themselves, as well as
the end. In spite of these odious revelations, the child felt that her
love for her mother was undiminished, and a pitying comprehension of the
natural differences between the two nearest to her on earth slowly arose
in her mind, allowing her to do justice to the intentions of both.

Aurore wandered at first about the convent with only a vague feeling
of loneliness. The young girls, French and English, who composed its
classes, surveyed her in the beginning with distrust. Soon the youngest
and wildest set, called _Diables_, accorded her affiliation, and in
their company she managed to increase tolerably the anxieties and
troubles of the under-mistresses.

She was early initiated into the _great secret_, the traditionary legend
of the convent. This pointed at the existence, in some subterranean
dungeon, of a wretched prisoner, or perhaps of several, cut off from
liberty and light; and to _deliver the victim_ became the object of a
hundred wild expeditions, by day and by night, through the uninhabited
rooms and extensive vaults of the ancient edifice. The little ladies
hoarded with care their candle-ends,--they tumbled up and down ruinous
staircases, listened for groans and complaints, tried to undermine walls
and partitions, fortunately with little success. The victim was never
found, but her story was bequeathed from class to class, and her
deliverance was always the object and excuse of the _Diables_.