impossibility of raising upon it anything like a comfortable European home. Yet, nevertheless, this gigantic feat is what the nuns, by a peculiar genius, patient perseverance, and severe economy, have accomplished. The two-roomed mud cabin of twenty-three years ago is now a tradition, and they have made themselves a lovely centre above the dirty village of Lutra. They have cultivated the stony, impoverished soil till their gardens are thickly foliaged by lemons, oranges, figs, pomegranates, cactuses, oleanders, oaks, olives, apples, pears, and apricots. These fruits are consumed in the convent partly, and the surplus is sold in Syra for a mere song, which, if they could export to England would yield them a profitable interest. Their gardens are arranged with great taste, French and English flowers blooming side by side with the luxuriant growths of the country. Nothing more lovely than the site upon which their mountain home is built can be imagined. The hills roll one above the other in different colors, and the valleys, with their stains of verdure and dusky foliages upon the red soil and marble rocks, are unfolded like a perpetual panorama. If you mount the terrace or the castra higher up—once a Venetian fortress—you will see the dreamy Mediterranean, responsive to the slightest emotions of the Eastern sky, and you will be surrounded by soft, blue touches of land breaking above its waves of intenser color—the Grecian Isles, Syra, with its white town half hidden by the cloud-shadowed hills, Syphona, a misty margin of gray upon the clear horizon, ancient Delos, so dim as to appear neither wholly sky nor land; desert Delos, with darker, fuller curves of land upon a silver edge of water, and nearest Mycono, a blending of the purest blues, with the famous Naxos behind washing which, whatever its mood in general, the Mediterranean is sure to take its own distinctive color—sapphire.

The convent is built in the shape of the letter S, with the new building recently added for the pupils—a long line of class-rooms and music closets below and the dormitories above admirably arranged so that each girl is enclosed in a kind of cell, or cabin, numbered on the door outside, with a general ceiling. It is original and much better than the old system, by which twenty or thirty girls felt themselves in a general bedroom. This building has proved the most expensive of all, and the undertaking leaves the community considerably in debt and if any of my readers feel sufficiently impressed by the endurance, courage, and self-sacrifice I have indicated in this short sketch to desire to be of any help in a most deserving cause, donations to enable the convent to pay off its debt will be very gratefully received by the superior. Their charities and hospitalities are necessarily great, and their isolated position precludes them from the enjoyment of those resources and assistances which the communities in Catholic countries may justly rely upon.

The features of the island of Tenos gather beauty with familiarity, and the inhabitants are as simple and pure and primitive as the old ideal of Arcadia without, however, the picturesque shepherd costume and crook. They have the greatest respect for the French nuns, teach their little brown-faced babies to salute them by kissing their hand, and with the untutored courtesy of their peasant race are willing and anxious to render the sisters whatever service lies within their power. They wonder greatly at the taste and artistic beauty of the convent grounds; at the perfect neatness and cleanliness of all the domestic details, and those who have come under the personal influence of the nuns are already endeavoring to beautify their own homes. A servant man who had worked in the convent has gradually turned his pig-sty home into a charming little cottage, with a neat terrace covered with trellised vines, the poles which support it wreathed in fragrant basilica. He is quite proud when you stop in the dirty village to admire the incongruous effect of his pretty house, and tells you frankly that he owes his taste to "la Mère Assistante."

The influence of these ladies throughout the primitive island is remarkable, and by the simple-minded peasants who have benefited so greatly by their charity and labors, are gratefully recognized as the one oasis of civilization in their midst. Unfortunately they are not rich enough to give any more practical evidence of gratitude than sincere love and devotion.