Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-23
TEXAS GIRL ABROAD.
She Assumes the Veil and Bures Herself
for Awhile in French Convent.
French Do Not Allow Themselves to Be Both
cred with Their Children-SchOol Life
of the Giddy French Girl
XIX
For the Gazette.

For the Gazette.
I have renowned the world and retired
under the veil in order to live and move
and have my being in French for two
months, leaving my English-speaking {,
ma four, miles away in Paris. What
first drew me to the convent was one of
our nice English girls at Miss Pryde's,
who obtained situation here as English
teacher. The minute 1 entered the YES
thule, all bright with potted flowers, the
child Jesus holding out His hands in well
come. and St. Joseph standing in the
corner, "My ma, - said I, 81 want to
come here. - That was said before we
had seen the mother superior, and she
would have decided the matter if the
vestibule had not already done it. She
is one of those gracious, queenly women
whom one loves and obeys as the newt
able thing, and who seems TO justify the
forms and ceremonies of this pompous
religion by living in the spirit which first
inspired them. Ever since arrived and
was led by a gentle, smiling sister to my
little white chamber, where the fire was
blazing and Notre Mere herself, Gas the
mother superior is called, } smiling a
welcome, have considered myself as in
the very finest of clover.
There are at least 200 pupils here from
four years old to twenty, the large ma
jorlty of them being boarders; there are
about fifteen "religeuses who teach
and manage the household and who are
called madame, - and as many more
lay-sisters who clean and cook and wash
and are addressed as ''ms sRur.' The
new building added TO the old convent,
which was 81 hospital for the soldiers in
the last war, is fine edifice, five stories
high, with large, we'll finished rooms,
heated by furnace 1t is my opinion,
however, that that furnace is of feeble
constitution; everybody wears a shawl
or jacket and felt shoes in the house
The students all live in Paris, but never
go home except for the holidays. 1t is
evident that French people do not allow
themselves TO be bothered with their
children; the poor people put their babies
ON A BABY-FARM
in the country almost as soon as they are
born, and the richer children come to a
convent when they are four or five years
old there TO remain till they are old
enodgh to get married. During those
eight or ten years of school life the girls
need no money except for boubons. and
no dress except simple black one which
Is protected from collar TO hem bv huge
black alpaca apron, Eight years of
sleeping in q dormitory with thirty or
forty others, OF being driven in a flock to
work to play, to walk Eight years of
constant surveillance day and night; of
letters opened and readi The girls never
go out except for formal promenade:
they do not even have the privilege of the
beautiful park with its winding walks cut
between thickets of lilac bushes, but only
of a small portion of it fenced of, where
they 20 to play for an hour after dinner
and again from to 8. Each OF the
nine classes, each one distinguished by
the different colored girdle with which
the black Mother Hubbard aprons are
belted, has also recreation room in the
house where the children play after dinner |