Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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22 The Augusta Seminary Annual. pipes, silent now like all the rest. From the walls were hanging tattered fragments of painted canvas and at our feet were numer- ous slabs with the words Sister Maria or Sister Anna, Re- quiescat in Pace. We wandered up to the organ loft and there Theresa told me the story of Sister Francesca on whose slab was written, She will awake in the morning. ' ' Sister Francesca ' ' was young and beautiful and lived at the foot of the convent hill. She was the gayest of the gay and the Senorita knows that when one is too happy it is that soon will sorrow come. She sang all day and the young men went mad for love of her dark eyes . She laughed them all to scorn but Pedro, to whom she gave her troth. Yet she was not happy long, for jealous Chico in his rage stabbed Pedro to the heart one dark ni ht. Then her heart broke and when Easter came she went up to the convent on the hill and took the vows. They say she never smiled again, but she nursed the sick with tender care and taught the little children. VVhen Sunday came she sang in the convent chapel and strangers came from far and near to hear. She died soon after, and sometimes on summer nights, when all is still, if one will come up here, one can hear her sing, like an angel moan- ing in despair. She paused, and we sat in silence, watching with eyes intent the violet lights that shifted uneasily on the altar only to rest at last on the white tomb of ' ' Sister Francesca ' ' and then fade .softly away into darkness. What mu.st .she not have suffered before she at la.st found peace in this quiet chapel ? We crept down the steps softly and passed out the rickety gate, while the stars came peeping out one by one and on the breeze was wafted to us the music of an old Latin vesper. O, Israel ' s watchful Shepherd spreads- Tents of Angels round our bed, While our eyes we gently close. Stealing o ' er us soft repose, Soul and body now we leave O, Israel ' s Watchman unto Thee. At last the donkeys came and we left Jundiahy half reluc- tant, .so strongly had the charm of the quaint little town taken

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' 1 he Augusta Soninary Annual. ' •IX gathered the women atul children, careless that elsewhere the world moved more rapidly, that elsewhere women worked and wept while men labored and fought. They hurried not to wash the clothes they had brought with them for that purpose. Was there not to-morrow always ? The children dabbled in the water and watched their boats of orange peel come safely into port and laughed with glee when one suffered shipwreck on some rocky shoal. When evening came and the sunset rays threw a .strange, peculiar glamour over the quaint old town, it seemed to waken for a few short hours like the prince in the fairy tale. The beg- gars shook themselves and counting ihe coppers in their pockets, hurried on to finish their rounds. The shop-keepers took in their chairs and came out to talk to their fellow businessmen, and the women hastened in doors to prepare the savory evening meal of beans and garlic. From the old church came the sound of evening bells and our eyes wandered involuntarily to the con- vent on the hill, who.se ve.sper bells had long hung voiceless, silent, ' mid the silence that reigned around. One day, leaving my less industrious companions on the broad piazza of the little inn I had climbed the hill to the old convent with Theresa, a flower-girl, whose acquaintance I had made at the fountain. With the great dark eyes and dark brown hair which are the gift of the women of a southern clime, a crim- son shawl thrown with careless grace around her shoulders, .she seemed to have imbibed the witchery of the time and the place. StoppiniT here and there to pick a fern or flower, we at last lifted the rusty latch of the convent gate and stepped into the deserted garden. Over its crumbling walls hunt; a mantle of ivy and on the very threshhold, wild flowers and grasses were grow- ing while the grating was rusty and .some of the bars had fallen out from long disuse. Throu jh the once forbidden door we passed and found ourselves in a long, dark corridor upon which opened numerous cell doors, where in days gone by their inmates had knelt and wept and prayed and gazed out with unavailing long- ing on the blue distant mountains. We opened several doors, only to find a broken chair or a worn-out pallet, and in one — a skull. At last we reached the chapel and sat down to rest. Through the broken, colored windows, the rays of the setting sun still fell in rainbow hues upon the broken altar and falling organ

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The Aus usta Seminary Annual. 23 hold on us, and we thoug-ht with Tennyson, that in the sleepy, restful village, It were sweet, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes, ever to seem falling asleep in a half dream, To dream and dream like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh -bush on the height. When we had reached the mountain-top, we paused to take one last look at the green, flat roofs, the fountains, and the orange and myrtle groves, then turned away, with a sigh for the scenes and places we should visit no more, to mount our donkeys and clamber down the other side. M. L.