The north half of the convent is the mother house of the Sisters, the residence of the Mother Superior and her assistants, with the Sisters of the academy, as well as those at home from the outside missions for needed rest or in broken health, so that there are usually a hundred Sisters or more in the house. At the extreme north end is now the spacious novitiate, built in 1885. The institution has a hundred novices in a two years' course of training and probation under the Mother of Novices, and there are usually a dozen or twenty candidates for the novitiate awaiting admission through three months or more of probation.

The convent chapel, iis large as a parish churchy is in an extension to the east, nearly in the middle of the convent, between the Sisters' department and that of the pupils. The convent has a large number of fine paintings and works of art, and everything about the building is admirable for its neatness and good order, and the extensive grounds are always well kept. The carriage drive from the convent to the eastern entrance at Riverdale Avenue is about half a mile in length, and towards the west, on the Hudson, a quarter of a mile from the convent door, is the Mt. St. Vincent Station of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, on the Sisters" own grounds. The institution is supplied with gas and with water from the Yonkers works, and is under the protection of the New York Qity police. The picturesque stone castle of Edwin Forrest still stands between the convent and the railroad station, and a part is made the dwelling of the chaplain of the institution. The larger rooms on the first floor are occupied by the museum of natural history, the collection of minerals being unusually large and good,* and there is also a fine cabinet of coins and medals.^