But some, alas, amongst the young ones have discarded their traditional costume, and are arrayed _a la franque_, in gowns and hats.

And such gowns, such hats, such flowers! The very peasants of our meanest villages would disdain them.

Oh! why cannot someone tell these poor little women, who have it in their power to be so adorable, that the beautiful folds of their black veils give to them an exquisite and characteristic distinction, while this poor tinsel, which recalls the mid-Lent carnivals, makes of them objects that excite our pity! In one of the walls which now surround us there is a low and shrinking doorway.

Can this be the entrance to the basilica?
The idea seems absurd.

And yet some of the pretty creatures in the black veils and bracelets of gold, who were in front of us, have disappeared through it, and already the perfume of the censers is wafted towards us.