TRESPASSERS ON A NUNNERY.
In twelve or eighteen months after the festive occasion to which I have referred, I accompanied a friend to visit two of his daughters, who were pupils at the Loretto Convent, Rathfarnham. Mrs. Ball, the aged and respected Superioress, gave us a very kind reception. We were conducted through the gardens and conservatories. On returning to the house, we were plentifully served with refreshments. In the course of conversation, my friend expressed his regret that so much hostile feeling should exist against conventual institutions. I remarked that it was not at all so intense as it had been in the previous century, when in London the mere reputation of a house being a nunnery was considered by the populace as fully sufficient to justify its destruction. To the best of my recollection, the Superioress observed—"I hope that those who entertained such hostile feelings lived long enough to repent of them. I think that the various classes of society are coming to a better understanding, and I expect great progressive improvement. Here we have not suffered the slightest annoyance for more than thirty years, and the only matter of which we had to complain was not very serious. Shortly after this establishment was founded, two young fellows, who resided in the neighbourhood, formed a design to entice two very handsome and rich young ladies to elope with them. They provided ladders, climbed into the trees which overhung the wall, dropped notes at the feet of the lasses, and were for a time incessant in their amatory pursuit. However, a communication with the guardian of one and the parents of the other, and the consequent authoritative expostulations, produced a satisfactory effect. They promised to relinquish their project, and as a token of their sincerity, sent us their ladders. I believe they repented of having given us any trouble, and they implicitly kept their promise. One of them is now a colonel in the army, and the other is a magistrate of police. Mr. Porter, let me request you to have more fruit and another glass of wine." I admired the kind and forgiving sentiments of the Superioress, and felt very grateful for her courteous hospitality, but I had no idle curiosity to know the names of the two ladder lads to whom her observations referred.