282 THE STORY OF MY LIFE [1854
noirs, et ses grands yeux: elle avait du couleur, elle etait vraiment ravissante! elle £tait radieuse! . . . Dans ce temps-la elle £tait la reine de tous les bals — a 1'ambassade, a la cour, partout: mais elle ii'^tait jamais plus ravissante de sa beaut^ qne ce jour-la dans le convent.'"
The Dowager Lady Lothian1 once told me that in the letter of condolence which Madame Davidoff wrote to my sister after her mother's death she said? " The cross which you saw on the day of your first communion has been very heavy, but it has never crushed you." On the day of her first communion she saw a huge black cross between her and the altar. She lay oil the ground, and it advanced to crush her. Only it seemed as if an invisible power upheld it, and then she saw that the top was wreathed with flowers. Oh, how prophetic was this vision of the cross!
A few days after her reception, Sir Peter Pole fulfilled his word with regard to his daughter Marguerite. He turned her out of his house, and he never would allow her name to be mentioned again. Not only to her father, but to my sister, and to her own sister, Alice Pole, every trace of her was lost.
I have been anticipating greatly, but it seems impossible to break up a connected story into the different years in which their events occurred. Meantime, without any romantic excitement and far removed from religious controversy, our quiet existence flowed on- though I was always fond of my sister and deeply interested in the faint echoes which from time to time reached me from her life.
1 Cecil, widow of the 7th Marquis.ced her mother and me. A collation was then served. . . . Nothing was said about her going away. 4 Voulez-vous amener votre fille ?' said one of the nuns at last to Madame Hare. 6 Je la laisse parfaitement libre inaintenant et toujours,' she replied. c Oh comme Mademoiselle (Stait belle ce jour-l&; elle 6tait fraiche, elle allait si bien avec ce grand voile blanc, et ses beaux cheveux>t|l Un H \\iip ,)j| A*plM fc[p: 11? p«wj <>J «»,o ;|(>U Op A.UjJ n:i(J NU.np •}{{«»{$! p,)J|.i\,j n< .ui! *vA\M|J.»f ,M|i j«>