Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

We congratulated Sebastien upon his good fortune and wished him promotion and success: and looking at his straight-forward open face, so singularly free from guile, we thought the fair Anita was by no means to be condoled with, however humble their prospects.

Then we made way into the upper part of the town, and presently Sebastien turned into a chapel attached to a convent.

It was a small building of no pretension, but with a marvellous repose and quietness about it. A screen divided the body of the church from the altar, and immediately before the altar, separated from us by the screen, was a strange and striking vision.

Two young girls who might have been some eighteen years old, knelt side by side at the foot of the steps, motionless as carven images and dressed in white. Their veils were thrown back, but their faces, turned towards the altar, were invisible. Their posture was full of grace, and their dress, whether by accident or design, was becomingly arranged and fell in artistic folds. All the time we looked they moved neither hand nor foot, and might have been, as we have said, carved in stone. We almost felt as though gazing upon a vision of angels, so wonderfully did the light fall upon them as they knelt: whilst in the body of the church we were in semi-obscurity.

Presently a bell tinkled, a side door opened, and two other young girls very much of the same age and dressed in exactly the same way, entered. The two at the altar rose, made deep, graceful curtsies, and veiling their faces, passed out of the chapel. Those who entered at once threw back their veils. In the obscurity we were not observed. We had full view of their charming faces, far too charming to become the nuns for which Sebastien said they were qualifying.

"They are White Ladies," he whispered, "and very soon will be cloistered and never see the world again. It is enough to break one's heart."

"You don't approve, Sebastien?"

"Ah, señor, I shudder at the thought. It occurs to me what a terrible thing it would be if Anita were to turn nun instead of becoming my happy wife—at least I shall do all I can to make her happy. But these poor girls—think for a moment of the humdrum life they are taking up; nothing to look forward to; no change, no pleasure of any sort. They might as well be buried alive at once and put out of their misery."

As the door opened to admit the two novices—if novices they were—we had caught sight of others in the passage; some eight or ten, as we fancied. An elderly nun, equally dressed in white, was going amongst them, almost, as it seemed, in the act of benediction. She was evidently counselling, encouraging, fortifying those to whom she ministered. One might have thought that passing through that doorway was renouncing an old life and taking up a new one; an irrevocable step and choice from which there was no recall and no turning back.

H. C. was taken with a lump in his throat as the young fair women unveiled and moved towards the altar. One of them was certainly very beautiful. Large wistful blue eyes stood out in contrast with the ivory pallor of her oval face, than which the spotless veil was not more pure and chaste.