and in the course of the next day or two, the whole sad state of
things came before me.

The little Cecile de Bellaise had been carried to a convent at Angers
from the farm that she could just remember. Here she had spent all
the happy days of her life. The nuns ere not strict, and they must
have been very ignorant, for they had taught her nothing but her
prayers, a little reading, some writing, very bad orthography,
embroidery, and heraldry; but they were very good-natured, and had a
number of pensionnaires who seemed to have all run wild together in
the corridors and gardens, and played all sorts of tricks on the
nuns. Sometimes Cecile told me some of these, and very unedifying
they were,--acting ghosts in the passages, fastening up the cell
doors, ringing the bells at unearthly hours, putting brushes or shoes
in the beds, and the like practical jokes.

Suddenly, from the midst of these wild sports, while still a mere
child under fourteen, Cecile was summoned to be married to Armand
d'Aubepine, who was two years older, and was taken at once to Chateau
d'Aubepine.

There was no more play for her; she had to sit upright embroidering
under the eyes of Madame la Comtesse and of Mademoiselle de
Gringrimeau; nor did she ever go out of doors except for a turn on
the terrace with the ladies, or a drive in the great coach. Of
course they were disappointed in having such a little unformed being
on their hands, but they must have forgotten that they had ever been
young themselves, when they forced her to conform rigidly to the life
that suited them, and which they thought the only decorous thing for
a lady of any age.