lay-sister carried him off in spite of his vociferations. They say, he bit her in going; some say in the neck, others on the arm. I believe it is not well known where he bit her; but the circumstance is of no consequence. Off he went. The devotee was soon

within the convent, and the visitor's arrival was announced.

Here's a noise!

At the first sound of the news, the bell was set ringing. The nuns were at prayers, but up they all jump. They shriek, they clap their hands, they fly. ""Tis he, sister! 'Tis he! He is in the great parlor!" The great parlor is filled in a twinkling. Even the old nuns, marching in order, forget the weight of their years. The whole house was grown young again. It is said to have been on this occasion, that Mother Angelica ran for the first time.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

Admiration of the parrot's new friends converted into astonishment and horror.-Ver-Vert keeps no measures with his shocking acquirements.— The nuns fly from him in terror, and determine upon instantly sending him back, not, however, without pity.—His return, and astonishment of his old friends. He is sentenced to solitary confinement, which restores his virtue.-Transport of the nuns, who kill him with kindness.

AT length the blessed spectacle burst upon the good sisters. They cannot satiate their eyes with admiring: and in truth, the rascal was not the less handsome for being less virtuous. His military look and petit maître airs gave him even a new charm. All mouths burst out in his praise; all at once. He, however, does not deign to utter one pious word, but stands rolling his eyes like a young Carmelite. Grief the first. There was a scandal in this air of effrontery. In the second place, when the Prioress, with an august air, and like an inward-hearted creature as she was, wished to interchange a few sentiments with the bird, the first words my gentleman uttered,-the only answer he condescended to give, and that too with an air of nonchalance, or rather contempt, and like an unfeeling villain, was, "What a pack of fools these nuns are!"

History says he learned these words on the road. At this debut, Sister Augustin, with an air of the greatest sweetness, hoping to make their visitor cautious, said to him, "For shame, my dear brother." The dear brother, not to be corrected, rhymed her a word or two, too audacious to be repeated.

"Holy Jesus!" exclaimed the sister; "he is a sorcerer, my dear mother!-Just Heaven! what a wretch ! Is this the divine parrot?"

Ver-Vert, like a reprobate at the gallows, made no other answer than by setting up a dance, and singing, "Here we go up, up, up ;" which, to improve, he commenced with an "O d-mme."

The nuns would have stopped his mouth; but he was not to be hindered. He gave a buffoon imitation of the prattle of the young sisters; and then shutting his beak, and dropping into a palsied imbecility, mimicked the nasal drawl of his old enemies, the antiques!

But it was still worse, when, tired and worn out with the stale sentences of his reprovers, Ver-Vert foamed and raged like a corsair, thundering out all the terrible words he had learned aboard the vessel. Heavens! how he swore, and what things he said! His dissolute voice knew no bounds. The lower regions themselves appeared to open before them. Words not to be thought of danced upon his beak. The young sisters thought he was talking Hebrew.

"Oh!-blood and 'ouns! Whew! D-m-n! Here's a h-ll of a storm!"

At these tremendous utterances, all the place trem bled with horror. The nuns, without more ado, fled a thousand ways, making as many signs of the cross. They thought it was the end of the world. Poor Mother Cicely, falling on her nose, was the ruin of her last tooth. "Eternal Father!" exclaimed Sister Vivian, opening with difficulty a sepulchral voice: "Lord have mercy on us! who has sent us this antichrist? Sweet Saviour! What a conscience can it be, which swears in this manner, like one of the damned? Is this the famous wit, the sage Ver-Vert,

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who is so beloved and extolled? For Heaven's sake, let him depart from among us without more ado.""O God of love!" cried sister Ursula, taking up the lamentation; "what horrors! Is this the way they talk among our sisters at Nevers? This their perverse language! This the manner in which they form. youth! What a heretic! O divine wisdom, let us get rid of him, or we shall all go to the wicked place together!"

In short, Ver-Vert is fairly put in his cage, and sent on his travels back again. They pronounce him detestable, abominable, a condemned criminal, convicted of having endeavored to pollute the virtue of the holy sisters. All the convent sign his decree of banishment, but they shed tears in doing it. It was impossible not to pity a reprobate in the flower of his age, who was unfortunate enough to hide such a depraved heart under an exterior so beautiful. For his part, Ver-Vert desired nothing better than to be off. He was carried back to the river side in a box, and did not bite the lay-sister again.

But what was the despair, when he returned home, and would fain have given his old instructors a like serenade! Nine venerable sisters, their eyes in tears, their senses confused with horror, their veils two deep, condemned him in full conclave. The younger ones, who might have spoken for him, were not allowed to be present. One or two were for sending him back to the vessel; but the majority resolved upon keeping and chastising him. He was sentenced to two months' abstinence, three of imprisonment, and four of silence. No garden, no toilet, no bed-room, no little cakes. Nor was this all. The sisters chose for his jailer the very Alecto of the convent, a hideous old

fury, a veiled ape, an octogenary skeleton, a spectacle made on purpose for the eye of a penitent.

In spite of the cares of this inflexible Argus, some amiable nuns would often come with their sympathy to relieve the horrors of the bird's imprisonment. Sister Rosalie, more than once, brought him almonds before breakfast. But what are almonds in a room cut off from the rest of the world! What are sweet

meats in captivity but bitter herbs?

Ex

Covered with shame and instructed by misfortune, or weary of the eternal old hag his companion, our hero at last found himself contrite. He forgot the dragoons and the monk, and once more in unison with the holy sisters both in matter and manner, became more devout than a canon. When they were sure of his conversion, the divan re-assembled, and agreed to shorten the term of his penitence. Judge if the day of his deliverance was a day of joy! All his future moments, consecrated to gratitude, were to be spun by the hands of love and security. O faithless pleasure! O vain expectation of mortal delight! All the dormitories were dressed with flowers. quisite coffee, songs, lively exercise, an amiable tumult of pleasure, a plenary indulgence of liberty, all breathed of love and delight: nothing announced the coming adversity. But, O indiscreet liberality! O fatal overflowingness of the hearts of nuns! Passing too quickly from abstinence to abundance, from the hard bosom of misfortune to whole seas of sweetness, saturated with sugar and set on fire with liqueurs, Ver-Vert fell one day on a box of sweetmeats, and lay on his death-bed. His roses were all changed to cypress. In vain the sisters endeavored to recall his fleeting spirit. The sweet excess had hastened his