She was between twelve and thirteen then, and had grown into a slim little maiden, rather tall for her age, with a little pale face as in old days, but with her wavy brown hair all braided now, and fastened in long plaits round her head.  In these two years she has become somewhat reconciled to her convent life; not, indeed, as a permanent arrangement—­it never occurred to her to regard it in that light—­but as something that must be endured till a new future should open out before her.  She learns her lessons, sings in the chapel, knows something of compote-making, and can embroider with skilful little fingers almost after Soeur Lucie’s own heart.  She still holds aloof from her companions, turning to Soeur Lucie for society, though rather with the feeling of the simple-hearted little nun being bon camarade, than with any deeper sentiment of friendship or respect.  She is rarely en penitence now; the vehement little spirit seems laid; and if something of her old spring and energy have gone with it, if she is sometimes sad, and almost always quiet, there is no one to note it much, or to heed the change that has apparently come over her.  And yet Madelon was in truth little altered, and was scarcely less of a child than when Graham had brought her to the convent.  She had learned a variety of things, it is true; she could have named all the principal cities in Europe now; and though she still stumbled over the kings of France, her multiplication-table was unexceptionable; but her education had been one of acquisition rather than of development.  Her mind had not yet had time to assimilate itself with those around her, nor to become reconciled to the life that was so at variance with all her old traditions; and she maintained a nucleus, as it were, of independent thought, which no mere extraneous influences or knowledge could affect.  In the total silence imposed upon herself, and those around her, concerning her past life, there had been no possibility of modifying her ideas on that subject, and they were still at the same point as when she entered the convent.  She still clung to her father’s memory, with all the passionate love of which her ardent little soul was capable; she still believed in his perfection, and held to her recollections of the old days with a strength and tenacity only enhanced by the contrast which her present life daily forced upon her.  The past lived in her memory as a bright, changeful dream, varying from one pleasure to another, with an ever-shifting background of fair, foreign towns and cities, Kursaals, palaces, salons, gardens, mountains, and lakes, and quiet green nooks of country—­all, as it seemed to her, with the power of generalization that seizes on the most salient points, and takes them as types of the whole, shining in sunlight that never clouded, under clear blue skies that never darkened.  Madelon knew that that time had gone by for ever; and yet, in all her dreams for the future, her imagination