Libr@rsi

1656-58] RELATION OF ibsj-sS 259
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE DEATH OF A YOUNG HURON HOSPITAL
NUN.
LITTLE
chickens fear the kite, little lambs run
from the wolf, and little Savages abhor re-
straint. All this proceeds from one and the
same cause, namely, nature. The Savages pass
almost their entire lives either in hunting, or in
journeys by land or water, and very often take their
wives [89] and children with them; hence, being
conceived in this passion, which is strengthened by
long habit, their children love liberty almost as
naturally as little ducks take to the brooks and rivers.
The Hospital Nuns and the Ursulines of Kebec
admit that the little Savage girls have intelligence,
that many of them have good dispositions, and that
they are easily won by gentleness ; but they have a
strong
aversion for constraint. We have seen little
seminarists, reared in the Convent of the Ursulines,
not only pious and devout, but so well taught that
they were capable of teaching their companions to
read and write. We saw them execute the little
domestic duties of the house with skill. Finally,
these poor children, finding themselves loved, and
even having a taste for piety, asked and urged to be
made Nuns ; when, however, they were kept long in
confinement, to test their call and habituate them to a
settled and cloistered life, they felt, as they grew older,
[90] the impulse within them to go and come; and