that I ran a great chance of being entirely spoilt.

At about that time, I was informed that I was destined for the cloister. Not having ever been beyond its walls, and knowing nothing of the world but through the report of the nuns, who represented it in dreadful colours, I was perfectly satisfied with the lot that awaited me.

Our convent was in a rude, rocky situa tion, on the borders of Leon, between Ciudad Rodrigo and the kingdom of Portugal, and here, perhaps, I might have lived and died a nun; but the French, (who had invaded Spain and Portugal,) approaching the nearest town to us, committed such ravages that the peaceful inhabitants of Santa Margarita took fright, and we were conveyed by a detachment of Spaniards into Portugal.

We were at different times removed from place to place, and in different parties dispersed among the various convents on our route. It was my fortune to be conveyed quite across Portugal, to a convent on the coast.

My companions were, our lady abbess, a lay-sister called Bianca, (who had been my constant friend and protectress from the time I had first been placed at St. Margarita,) and eight other nuns.

I was now fifteen years of age, and was looking forwards to the happy day when I should be enrolled among the holy sisterhood.

Our present abode, the convent of Santa Cecilia, was placed in a most wild and picturesque situation. On one side it was faced in by stupendous rocks, whose base the sea was continually lashing with great fury. The other three sides were surrounded by rocks, valleys and mountains, in wild confusion. Our nearest neighbours were a monastery of monks about half a mile distant, and a miserable hamlet in the valley, at the bottom of the rocky eminence on which the convent of Santa Cecilia was situated. A church formed one side of the square of our convent, which was very large. A spacious garden, in which we were permitted to ramble, (as it was com

pletely shut out from observation,) was my chief delight. One of its barriers was the rock on which the convent was built, and as this rock was deemed inaccessible, and was further secured from intrusion by the rude waves which washed its foot, there was no defence, save a low, rude wall running along its precipitous edge. The other sides were shut out by the church, (which had no windows opening into the garden,) an immense high wall, separating us from the burial ground, and one front of the convent itself, with its noble cloister. Here we hoped for repose, but we soon found the prioress to be a very different person from our own kind and gentle lady abbess.

A tyrant, a bigot, and devoted to the French interest, she took every opportunity of annoying those whom she suspected of affection to the English, who had so generously left their own happy, peaceful land, to assist our countrymen in driving back our cruel and unprincipled invaders. The prioress was also extremely disconcerted at the bishop having placed us at all in her convent, particularly as

she soon discovered that our abbess and her small flock were warmly attached to the heretics, as she called our protectors. She made our residence at Santa Cecilia as unpleasant as possible, and I began to dread taking the veil under so imperious and morose a superior.

Time passed but slowly, as it passed unhappily, except when I could walk in the gardens, with our dear abbess, or my friend, Sister Bianca. Every day our situation was more and more unpleasant, and we became aware that the prioress was intriguing with some of the neighbouring disaffected monks, to injure in some way or other the cause of her country, and our brave defenders, the English, a body of whom were stationed at no great distance from the hamlet.

We were roused one night by a tremendous cannonade in the direction of the monastery, and rushing from our cells, found the prioress already dressed, and apparently in high spirits, giving orders to some of the lay

sisters to keep up "the fire upon the roof of

the tower."

This was evidently meant as a signal, and as some of us mounted to the roof, (the only place from which an uninterrupted view of the surrounding country could be obtained,) we saw fires blazing from the roof of the monastery, and also on one or two rocky heights in its vicinity.

We, who were not in the confidence of the prioress and her party, became seriously alarmed, as we felt convinced that it was a sure sign that the French were in the environs, and would, if successful over the English detachment stationed near the hamlet, (in spite of any assistance they might have received from the prioress,) commit their usual traitorous depredations and ravages; and we were not wrong in our conjectures, for before morning a body of French troops marched upon our convent, and tearing down the doors of the church, began desecrating the sacred edifice, and plundering it of the plate, while