Another of my haunts was the Convent and Maison de Sante of the Soeurs Augustines du Saint Coeur de Marie in the rue de la Sante.  It was curious to turn out of the broad, busy, populous avenue, crowded with trams, omnibuses, and camions, into the narrow, quiet street, which seemed all stone walls and big doors.  There was another hospital and a prison in the street, which naturally gave it rather a gloomy aspect, but once inside the courtyard of the Convent there was a complete transformation.  One found one’s self in a large, square, open court with arcades and buildings all around—­the chapel just opposite the entrance.  On one side of the court were the rooms for the patients, on the other nice rooms and small apartments which were let to invalids or old ladies, and which opened on a garden, really a park of thirteen or fourteen acres.  The doors were always open, and one had a lovely view of green fields and trees.  The moment you put your foot inside the court, you felt the atmosphere of peace and cheerfulness, though it was a hospital.  The nuns all looked happy and smiling—­they always do, and I always wonder why.  Life in a cloister seems to me so narrow and monotonous and unsatisfying unless one has been bred in a convent and knows nothing of life but what the teachers tell.

I have a friend who always fills me with astonishment—­a very clever, cultivated woman, no longer very young, married to a charming man, accustomed to life in its largest sense.  She was utterly wretched when her husband died, but after a time she took up her life again and seemed to find interest and pleasure in the things they had done together.  Suddenly she announced her intention of becoming a nun—­sold her house and lovely garden, where she had spent so many happy hours with her flowers and her birds, distributed her pretty things among her friends, and accepted all the small trials of strict convent life—­no bath, nor mirror, coarse underlinen and sheets—­no fire, no lights, no privacy, the regular irksome routine of a nun’s life, and is perfectly happy—­never misses the intellectual companionship and the refinement and daintiness of her former life,—­likes the commonplace routine of the convent—­the books they read to each other in “recreation,” simple stories one would hardly give to a child of twelve or fourteen,—­the fetes on the “mother’s” birthday, when the nuns make a cake and put a wreath of roses on the mother’s head.

The Soeurs Augustines are very happy in their lives, but they see a great deal more of the outside world.  They always have patients in the hospital, and people in the apartments, which are much in demand.  The care and attendance is very good.  The ladies are very comfortable and have as many visitors as they like in the afternoon at stated hours, and the rooms are very tempting with white walls and furniture, and scrupulously clean.  The cuisine is very good, everything very daintily served.  All day one saw black-robed figures moving quietly across the court, carrying all kinds of invalid paraphernalia—­cushions, rugs, cups of bouillon—­but there was never any noise—­no sound of talking or laughing.  When they spoke, the voices were low, like people accustomed to a sick-room.  No men were allowed in the Convent, except the doctors of course, and visitors at stated hours.