Chapter 17

Ring out the merry bell, the bride approaches,
The blush upon her cheek has shamed the morning,
For that is dawning palely. Grant, good saints,
These clouds betoken nought of evil omen!
OLD PLAY.

The day of the _fiancailles, or espousals, was now approaching;
and it seems that neither the profession of the Abbess, nor her
practice at least, were so rigid as to prevent her selecting the
great parlour of the convent for that holy rite, although
necessarily introducing many male guests within those vestal
precincts, and notwithstanding that the rite itself was the
preliminary to a state which the inmates of the cloister had
renounced for ever.

The Abbess's Norman pride of birth, and the real interest which
she took in her niece's advancement, overcame all scruples; and
the venerable mother might be seen in unwonted bustle, now giving
orders to the gardener for decking the apartment with flowers--now
to her cellaress, her precentrix, and the lay-sisters of the
kitchen, for preparing a splendid banquet, mingling her commands
on these worldly subjects with an occasional ejaculation on their
vanity and worthlessness, and every now and then converting the
busy and anxious looks which she threw upon her preparations into
a solemn turning upward of eyes and folding of hands, as one who
sighed over the mere earthly pomp which she took such trouble in
superintending. At another time the good lady might have been seen
in close consultation with Father Aldrovand, upon the ceremonial,
civil and religious, which was to accompany a solemnity of such
consequence to her family.

Meanwhile the reins of discipline, although relaxed for a season,
were not entirely thrown loose. The outer court of the convent was
indeed for the time opened for the reception of the male sex; but
the younger sisters and novices of the house being carefully
secluded in the more inner apartments of the extensive building,
under the immediate eye of a grim old nun, or, as the conventual
rule designed her, an ancient, sad, and virtuous person, termed
Mistress of the Novices, were not permitted to pollute their eyes
by looking on waving plumes and rustling mantles. A few sisters,
indeed, of the Abbess's own standing, were left at liberty, being
such goods as it was thought could not, in shopman's phrase, take
harm from the air, and which are therefore left lying on the
counter. These antiquated dames went mumping about with much
affected indifference, and a great deal of real curiosity,
endeavouring indirectly to get information concerning names, and
dresses, and decorations, without daring to show such interest in
these vanities as actual questions on the subject might have
implied.

A stout band of