The black gown stopped all at once. The nun was standing in front of a
green curtain. She lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle of a
wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round arches. Below the arches, in
the choir stalls, a long half-circle of stately figures. The figures
were draped from head to foot. When they bent their heads not an inch
of flesh was visible, except a few hands here and there that had
escaped the long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motionless; they
were as immobile as statues; occasionally, at the end of a "Gloria,"
all turned to face the high altar. At the end of the "Amen" a cloud of
black veils swept the ground. Then for several measures of the chant
the figures were again as marble. In each of the low, round arches, a
stately woman, tall and nobly planned, draped like a goddess turned
saint, stood and chanted to her Lord. Had the Norman builders carved
these women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, those ancient
sculptures could not have embodied, in more ideal image, the type of
womanly renunciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation.

We left them, with the rich chant still full upon their lips, with
heads bent low, calm as graven images. It was only the bloom on a
cheek, here and there, that made one certain of the youth entombed
within these nuns' garb.

"Happy, _mesdames? Oh, mais tres heureuses, toutes_--there are no women
so happy as we. See how they come to us, from all the country around.
_En voila une_--did you remark the pretty one, with the book, seated,
all in white? She is to be a full Sister in a month. She comes from a
noble family in the south. She was here one day, she saw the life of
the Sisters, of us all working here, among the poor soldiers--_elle a
vu ca, et pour tout de bon, s'est donnee a Dieu!"