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diff --git a/old/55703-8.txt b/old/55703-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b232ea3..0000000 --- a/old/55703-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4357 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Our Convent Days, by Agnes Repplier - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: In Our Convent Days - -Author: Agnes Repplier - -Release Date: October 8, 2017 [EBook #55703] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN OUR CONVENT DAYS *** - - - - -Produced by David E. Brown and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -By Agnes Repplier - - - IN OUR CONVENT DAYS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, _net._ Postage extra. - - COMPROMISES, 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, _net._ Postage 9 cents. - - THE FIRESIDE SPHINX. With 4 full-page and 17 text Illustrations by - Miss E. BONSALL. 12mo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 14 cents. - - BOOKS AND MEN. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - POINTS OF VIEW. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - ESSAYS IN IDLENESS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - IN THE DOZY HOURS, AND OTHER PAPERS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - ESSAYS IN MINIATURE. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - A BOOK OF FAMOUS VERSE. Selected by Agnes Repplier. In Riverside - Library for Young People. 16mo, 75 cents; _Holiday Edition_, 16mo, - fancy binding, $1.25. - - VARIA. 16mo, $1.25. - - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK. - - - - -IN OUR CONVENT DAYS - - - - - IN OUR - CONVENT DAYS - - BY - - AGNES REPPLIER, LITT.D. - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - - The Riverside Press, Cambridge - - 1905 - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1905 BY AGNES REPPLIER - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - _Published October 1905_ - - - - -To "Elizabeth" Robins Pennell - - "Thou know'st that we two went to school - together." - - JULIUS CÆSAR - - - - -Introduction - - -It has been many years since I went to school. Everything has changed -in the Convent that I loved, and I am asked to believe that every -change is for the better. I do not believe this at all. I am unmoved by -the sight of steam registers and electric lights. I look with disfavour -upon luxuries which would have seemed to us like the opulence of -Aladdin's palace. I cannot wax enthusiastic over the intrusion of Mr. -Matthew Arnold and Mr. Pater upon the library shelves, where Chambers' -Miscellany used to be _our_ nearest approach to the intellectual. The -old order changes, and that unlovely word, modernity, is heard within -the tranquil convent walls. Even the iron hand of discipline has been -relaxed; for the long line of girls whom I now watch filing sedately -in and out of the chapel have been taught to rule themselves, to use -their wider liberty with discretion. I wonder how they like it. I -wonder if liberty, coupled with discretion, is worth having when one is -eleven years old. I wonder if it be the part of wisdom to be wise so -soon. - -The friends whom I loved are scattered far and wide. When Tony died, -she took with her the sound of laughter into the silent land, and all -things have seemed more sober since she left. To those who live, these -pages will, I hope, bring back the sentiment of our early days. We made -one another's world then,--a world full of adventures, and imaginings, -and sweet absurdities that no one of us would now wish less absurd. -Our successors to-day know more than we knew (they could not well -know less), they have lectures, and enamelled bathtubs, and "Essays -in Criticism;" but do they live their lives as vehemently as we lived -ours; do they hold the secrets of childhood inviolate in their hearts -as we held them in ours; are they as untainted by the commonplace, as -remote from the obvious, as we always were; and will they have as vivid -a picture of their convent days to look back upon, as the one we look -at now? - - A. R. - - - - -Contents - - - - Marianus 1 - - The Convent Stage 36 - - In Retreat 72 - - Un Congé sans Cloche 107 - - Marriage Vows 148 - - Reverend Mother's Feast 183 - - The Game of Love 220 - - - - -Marianus - - -I do not know how Marianus ever came to leave his native land, nor -what turn of fate brought him to flutter the dovecotes of a convent -school. At eleven, one does not often ask why things happen, because -nothing seems strange enough to provoke the question. It was enough for -me--it was enough for all of us--that one Sunday morning he appeared -in little Peter's place, lit the candles on the altar, and served -Mass with decent and devout propriety. Our customary torpor of cold -and sleepiness--Mass was at seven, and the chapel unheated--yielded -to a warm glow of excitement. I craned my white-veiled head (we wore -black veils throughout the week and white on Sundays) to see how -Elizabeth was taking this delightful novelty. _She_ was busy passing -her prayer-book, with something evidently written on the fly-leaf, to -Emily Goring on the bench ahead. Emily, oblivious of consequences, -was making telegraphic signals to Marie. Lilly and Viola Milton knelt -staring open-mouthed at the altar. Tony was giggling softly. Only Annie -Churchill, her eyes fixed on her Ursuline Manual, was thumping her -breast remorsefully, in unison with the priest's "mea maxima culpa." -There was something about Annie's attitude of devotion which always -gave one a distaste for piety. - -Breakfast afforded no opportunity for discussion. At that Spartan -meal, French conversation alone was permitted; and even had we been -able or willing to employ the hated medium, there was practically no -one to talk to. By a triumph of monastic discipline, we were placed -at table, at our desks, and at church, next to girls to whom we had -nothing to say;--good girls, with medals around their necks, and -blue or green ribbons over their shoulders, who served as insulating -mediums, as non-conductors, separating us from cheerful currents of -speech, and securing, on the whole, a reasonable degree of decorum. I -could not open my bursting heart to my neighbours, who sat stolidly -consuming bread and butter as though no wild light had dawned upon our -horizon. When one of them (she is a nun now) observed painstakingly, -"J'espère que nous irons aux bois après midi;" I said "Oui," which was -the easiest thing _to_ say, and conversation closed at that point. We -always did go to the woods on Sunday afternoons, unless it rained. -During the week, the big girls--the arrogant and unapproachable First -Cours--assumed possession of them as an exclusive right, and left us -only Mulberry Avenue in which to play prisoner's base, and Saracens -and Crusaders; but on Sundays the situation was reversed, and the -Second Cours was led joyously out to those sweet shades which in our -childish eyes were vast as Epping Forest, and as full of mystery as -the Schwarzwald. No one could have valued this weekly privilege more -than I did; but the day was clear, and we were sure to go. I felt the -vapid nature of Mary Rawdon's remark to be due solely to the language -in which it was uttered. All our inanities were spoken in French; and -those nuns who understood no other tongue must have conceived a curious -impression of our intelligence. - -There was a brief recreation of fifteen minutes at ten o'clock, which -sufficed for a rapturous exchange of confidences and speculations. -Only those who have been at a convent school can understand how the -total absence of man enriches him with a halo of illusion. Here we -were, seven absurdly romantic little girls, living in an atmosphere -of devout and rarified femininity; and here was a tall Italian youth, -at least eighteen, sent by a beneficent Providence to thrill us with -emotions. Was he going to stay? we asked with bated breath. Was he -going to serve Mass every morning instead of Peter? We could not excite -ourselves over Peter, who was a small, freckle-faced country boy, -awkwardly shy, and--I should judge--of a saturnine disposition. We had -met him once in the avenue, and had asked him if he had any brothers -or sisters. "Naw," was the reply. "I had a brother wanst, but he -died;--got out of it when he was a baby. He was a cute one, he was." A -speech which I can only hope was not so Schopenhauerish as it sounds. - -And now, in Peter's place, came this mysterious, dark-eyed, and -altogether adorable stranger from beyond the seas. Annie Churchill, -who, for all her prayerfulness, had been fully alive to the situation, -opined that he was an "exile," and the phrase smote us to the heart. We -had read "Elizabeth; or the Exile of Siberia,"--it was in the school -library,--and here was a male Elizabeth under our ravished eyes. -"That's why he came to a convent," continued Annie, following up her -advantage; "to be hidden from all pursuit." - -"No doubt he did," said Tony breathlessly, "and we'll have to be very -careful not to say anything about him to visitors. We might be the -occasion of his being discovered and sent back." - -This thought was almost too painful to be borne. Upon our discretion -depended perhaps the safety of a heroic youth who had fled from tyranny -and cruel injustice. I was about to propose that we should bind -ourselves by a solemn vow never to mention his presence, save secretly -to one another, when Elizabeth--not the Siberian, but our own unexiled -Elizabeth--observed with that biting dryness which was the real secret -of her ascendency: "We'd better not say much about him, anyway. On our -own account, I mean." Which pregnant remark--the bell for "Christian -Instruction" ringing at that moment--sent us silent and meditative to -our desks. - -So it was that Marianus came to the convent, and we gave him our seven -young hearts with unresisting enthusiasm. Viola's heart, indeed, was -held of small account, she being only ten years old; but Elizabeth was -twelve, and Marie and Annie were thirteen,--ages ripe for passion, -and remote from the taunt of immaturity. It was understood from the -beginning that we all loved Marianus with equal right and fervour. We -shared the emotion fairly and squarely, just as we shared an occasional -box of candy, or any other benefaction. It was our common secret,--our -fatal secret, we would have said,--and must be guarded with infinite -precaution from a cold and possibly disapproving world; but no one of -us dreamed of setting up a private romance of her own, of extracting -from the situation more than one sixth--leaving Viola out--of its -excitement and ecstasy. - -We discovered in the course of time our exile's name and -nationality,--it was the chaplain who told us,--and also that he -was studying for the priesthood; this last information coming from -the mistress of recreation, and being plainly designed to dull our -interest from the start. She added that he neither spoke nor understood -anything but Italian, a statement which we determined to put to the -proof as soon as fortune should favour us with the opportunity. The -possession of an Italian dictionary became meanwhile imperative, and -we had no way of getting such a thing. We couldn't write home for one, -because our letters were all read before they were sent out, and any -girl would be asked why she had made this singular request. We couldn't -beg our mothers, even when we saw them, for dictionaries of a language -they knew we were not studying. Lilly said she thought she might ask -her father for one, the next time he came to the school. There is a -lack of intelligence, or at least of alertness, about fathers, which -makes them invaluable in certain emergencies; but which, on the other -hand, is apt to precipitate them into blunders. Mr. Milton promised -the dictionary, without putting any inconvenient questions, though -he must have been a little surprised at the scholarly nature of the -request; but just as he was going away, he said loudly and cheerfully:-- - -"Now what is it I am to bring you next time, children? Mint -candy, and handkerchiefs,--your Aunt Helen says you must live on -handkerchiefs,--and gloves for Viola, and a dictionary?" - -He was actually shaking hands with Madame Bouron, the Mistress General, -as he spoke, and she turned to Lilly, and said:-- - -"Lilly, have you lost your French dictionary, as well as all your -handkerchiefs?" - -"No, madame," said poor Lilly. - -"It's an Italian dictionary she wants this time," corrected Mr. Milton, -evidently not understanding why Viola was poking him viciously in the -back. - -"Lilly is not studying Italian. None of the children are," said Madame -Bouron. And then, very slowly, and with an emphasis which made two of -her hearers quake: "Lilly has no need of an Italian dictionary, Mr. -Milton. She had better devote more time and attention to her French." - -"I nearly fainted on the spot," said Lilly, describing the scene to -us afterwards; "and father looked scared, and got away as fast as he -could; and Viola was red as a beet; and I thought surely Madame Bouron -was going to say something to me; but, thank Heaven! Eloise Didier -brought up her aunt to say good-by, and we slipped off. Do you think, -girls, she'll ask me what I wanted with an Italian dictionary?" - -"Say you're going to translate Dante in the holidays," suggested Tony, -with unfeeling vivacity. - -"Say you're going to Rome, to see the Pope," said Marie. - -"Say you're such an accomplished French scholar, it's time you turned -your attention to something else," said Emily. - -"Say you're making a collection of dictionaries," said the imp, Viola. - -Lilly looked distressed. The humours of the situation were, perhaps, -less manifest to her perturbed mind. But Elizabeth, who had been -thinking the matter over, observed gloomily: "Oh, Boots" (our -opprobrious epithet for the Mistress General) "won't bother to ask -questions. She knows all she wants to know. She'll just watch us, and -see that we never get a chance to speak to Marianus. It was bad enough -before, but it will be worse than ever now. He might almost as well be -in Italy." - -Things did seem to progress slowly, considering the passionate nature -of our devotion. Never was there such an utter absence of opportunity. -From the ringing of the first bell at quarter past six in the morning -to the lowering of the dormitory lights at nine o'clock at night, we -were never alone for a moment, but moved in orderly squadrons through -the various duties of the day. Marianus served Mass every morning, and -on Sundays assisted at Vespers and Benediction. Outside the chapel, we -never saw him. He lived in "Germany,"--a name given, Heaven knows why, -to a farm-house on the convent grounds, which was used as quarters for -the chaplain and for visitors; but though we cast many a longing look -in its direction, no dark Italian head was ever visible at window or at -door. I believe my own share of affection was beginning to wither under -this persistent blight, when something happened which not only renewed -its fervour, but which thrilled my heart with a grateful sentiment, -not wholly dead to-day. - -It was May,--a month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and fuller than -usual of church-going, processions, and hymns. We were supposed to be, -or at least expected to be, particularly obedient and studious during -these four weeks; and, by way of incentive, each class had its candle, -tied with the class colour, and standing amid a lovely profusion of -spring flowers on the Madonna's altar. There were six of them: white -for the graduates, purple for the first class, blue for the second, red -for the third, green for the fourth, and pink for the fifth,--the very -little girls, for whom the discipline of school life was mercifully -relaxed. All the candles were lighted every morning during Mass, unless -some erring member of a class had, by misconduct the day before, -forfeited the honour, not only for herself, but for her classmates. -These tapers were my especial abhorrence. The laudable determination -of the third class to keep the red-ribboned candle burning all month -maddened me, both by the difficulties it presented, and by the meagre -nature of the consequences involved. I could not bring myself to -understand why they should care whether it were lit or not. To be sent -downstairs to a deserted music-room, there to spend the noon recreation -hour in studying Roman history or a French fable;--that was a penalty, -hard to avoid, but easy to understand. Common sense and a love of -enjoyment made it clear that no one should lightly run such risks. But -I had not imagination enough to grasp the importance of a candle more -or less upon the altar. It was useless to appeal to my love for the -Blessed Virgin. I loved her so well and so confidently, I had placed -my childish faith in her so long, that no doubt of her sympathy ever -crossed my mind. My own mother might side with authority. Indeed, she -represented the supreme, infallible authority, from which there was no -appeal. But in every trouble of my poor little gusty life, the Blessed -Mother sided with me. Of that, thank Heaven! I felt sure. - -This month my path was darkened by a sudden decision on Elizabeth's -part that our candle should not be once extinguished. Elizabeth, to -do her justice, did not often incline to virtue; but when she did, -there was a scant allowance of cakes and ale for any of us. She never -deviated from her chosen course, and she never fully understood the -sincere but fallible nature of our unkept resolutions. I made my usual -frantic, futile effort to follow her lead, with the usual melancholy -failure. Before the first week was over, I had come into collision -with authority (it was a matter of arithmetic, which always soured -my temper to the snapping point); and the sixth of May saw five -candles only burning at the veiled Madonna's feet. I sat, angry and -miserable, while Madame Duncan, who had charge of the altar, lit the -faithful five, and retired with a Rhadamanthine expression to her -stall. Elizabeth, at the end of the bench, looked straight ahead, with -an expression, or rather an enforced absence of expression, which I -perfectly understood. She would not say anything, but none the less -would her displeasure be made chillingly manifest. Mass had begun. -The priest was reading the Introit, when Marianus lifted a roving -eye upon the Blessed Virgin's altar. It was not within his province; -he had nothing to do with its flowers or its tapers; but when did -generous mind pause for such considerations? He saw that one candle, -a candle with a drooping scarlet ribbon, was unlit; and, promptly -rising from his knees, he plunged into the sacristy, reappeared with -a burning wax-end, and repaired the error, while we held our breaths -with agitation and delight. Madame Duncan's head was lowered in seemly -prayer; but the ripple of excitement communicated itself mysteriously -to her, and she looked up, just as Marianus had deftly accomplished his -task. For an instant she half rose to her feet; and then the absurdity -of re-attacking the poor little red candle seemed to dawn on her (she -was an Irish nun, not destitute of humour), and with a fleeting smile -at me,--a smile in which there was as much kindness as amusement,--she -resumed her interrupted devotions. - -But I tucked my crimson face into my hands, and my soul shouted with -joy. Marianus, our idol, our exile, the one true love of our six -hearts, had done this deed for me. Not only was I lifted from disgrace, -but raised to a preëminence of distinction; for had I not been saved -by _him_? Oh, true knight! Oh, chivalrous champion of the unhappy and -oppressed! When I recall that moment of triumph, it is even now with -a stir of pride, and of something more than pride, for I am grateful -still. - -That night, that very night, I was just sinking into sleep when a hand -was laid cautiously upon my shoulder. I started up. It was too dark -to see anything clearly, but I knew that the shadow by my side was -Elizabeth. "Come out into the hall," she whispered softly. "You had -better creep back of the beds. Don't make any noise!"--and without a -sound she was gone. - -I slipped on my wrapper,--night-gowns gleam so perilously white,--and -with infinite precaution stole behind my sleeping companions, each -one curtained safely into her little muslin alcove. At the end of the -dormitory I was joined by another silent figure,--it was Marie,--and -very gently we pushed open the big doors. The hall outside was flooded -with moonlight, and by the open window crouched a bunch of girls, -pressed close together,--so close it was hard to disentangle them. -A soft gurgle of delight bubbled up from one little throat, and was -instantly hushed down by more prudent neighbours. Elizabeth hovered -on the outskirts of the group, and, without a word, she pushed me to -the sill. Beneath, leaning against a tree, not thirty feet away, stood -Marianus. His back was turned to us, and he was smoking. We could see -the easy grace of his attitude,--was he not an Italian?--we could -smell the intoxicating fragrance of his cigar. Happily unaware of his -audience, he smoked, and contemplated the friendly moon, and wondered, -perhaps, why the Fates had cast him on this desert island, as remote -from human companionship as Crusoe's. Had he known of the six young -hearts that had been given him unbidden, it would probably have cheered -him less than we imagined. - -But to us it seemed as though our shadowy romance had taken form and -substance. The graceless daring of Marianus in stationing himself -beneath our windows,--or at least beneath a window to which we had -possible access; the unholy lateness of the hour,--verging fast upon -half-past nine; the seductive moonlight; the ripe profligacy of the -cigar;--what was wanting to this night's exquisite adventure! As -I knelt breathless in the shadow, my head bobbing against Viola's -and Marie's, I thought of Italy, of Venice, of Childe Harold, of -everything that was remote, and beautiful, and unconnected with the -trammels of arithmetic. I heard Annie Churchill murmur that it was -like a serenade; I heard Tony's whispered conjecture as to whether the -silent serenader really knew where we slept;--than which nothing seemed -less likely;--I heard Elizabeth's warning "Hush!" whenever the muffled -voices rose too high above the stillness of the sleeping convent; -but nothing woke me from my dreams until Marianus slowly withdrew -his shoulder from the supporting tree, and sauntered away, without -turning his head once in our direction. We watched him disappear in the -darkness; then, closing the window, moved noiselessly back to bed. "Who -saw him first?" I asked at the dormitory door. - -"I did," whispered Elizabeth; "and I called them all. I didn't intend -letting Viola know; but, of course, sleeping next to Lilly, she heard -me. She ought to be up in the 'Holy Child' dormitory with the other -little girls. It's ridiculous having her following us about everywhere." - -And, indeed, Viola's precocious pertinacity made her a difficult -problem to solve. There are younger sisters who can be snubbed into -impotence. Viola was no such weakling. - -But now the story which we thought just begun was drawing swiftly to -its close. Perhaps matters had reached a point when something had -to happen; yet it did seem strange--it seems strange even now--that -the crisis should have been precipitated by a poetic outburst on the -part of Elizabeth. Of all the six, she was the least addicted to -poetry. She seldom read it, and never spent long hours in copying it -in a blank-book, as was our foolish and laborious custom. She hated -compositions, and sternly refused the faintest touch of sentiment when -compelled to express her thoughts upon "The First Snow-drop," or "My -Guardian Angel," or the "Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots." Tony wrote -occasional verses of a personal and satiric character, which we held -to sparkle with a biting wit. Annie Churchill had once rashly shown -to Lilly and to me some feeble lines upon "The Evening Star." Deep -hidden in my desk, unseen by mortal eye save mine, lay an impassioned -"Soliloquy of Jane Eyre," in blank verse, which was almost volcanic in -its fervour, and which perished the following year, unmourned, because -unknown to the world. But Elizabeth had never shown the faintest -disposition to write anything that could be left unwritten, until -Marianus stirred the waters of her soul. That night, that moonlit -night, and the dark figure smoking in the shadows, cast their sweet -spell upon her. With characteristic promptness, she devoted her French -study hour the following afternoon to the composition of a poem, which -was completed when we went to class, and which she showed me secretly -while we were scribbling our _dictée_. There were five verses, headed -"To Marianus," and beginning,-- - - "Gracefully up the long aisle he glides," - -which was a poetic license, as the chapel aisle was short, and Marianus -had never glided up it since he came. He always--in virtue of his -office--entered by the sacristy door. - -But realism was then as little known in literature as in art, and -poetry was not expected to savour of statement rather than emotion. -Elizabeth's masterpiece expressed in glowing numbers the wave of -sentiment by which we were submerged. Before night it had passed -swiftly from hand to hand, and before night the thunderbolt had -fallen. Whose rashness was to blame I do not now remember; but, thank -Heaven! it was not mine. Some one's giggle was too unsuppressed. Some -one thrust the paper too hurriedly into her desk, or dropped it on -the floor, or handed it to some one else in a manner too obviously -mysterious not to arouse suspicion. I only know that it fell into the -hands of little Madame Davide, who had the eyes of a ferret and the -heart of a mouse, and who, being unable to read a word of English, sent -it forthwith to Madame Bouron. I only know that, after that brief and -unsatisfactory glimpse in French class, I never saw it again; which -is why I can now recall but one line out of twenty,--a circumstance I -devoutly regret. - -It was a significant proof of Madame Bouron's astuteness that, without -asking any questions, or seeking any further information, she summoned -six girls to her study that evening after prayers. She had only the -confiscated poem in Elizabeth's writing as a clue to the conspiracy, -but she needed nothing more. There we were, all duly indicted, save -Viola, whose youth, while it failed to protect us from the unsought -privilege of her society, saved her, as a rule, from any retributive -measures. Her absence on this occasion was truly a comfort, as her -presence would have involved the added and most unmerited reproach of -leading a younger child into mischief. Viola was small for her age, -and had appealing brown eyes. There was not a nun in the convent who -knew her for the imp she was. Lilly, gay, sweet, simple, generous, and -unselfish, seemed as wax in her little sister's hands. - -There were six of us, then, to bear the burden of blame; and Madame -Bouron, sitting erect in the lamplight, apportioned it with an -unsparing hand. Her fine face (she was coldly handsome, but we did not -like her well enough to know it) expressed contemptuous displeasure; -her words conveyed a somewhat exaggerated confidence in our guilt. Of -Elizabeth's verses she spoke with icy scorn;--she had not been aware -that so gifted a writer graced the school; but the general impropriety -of our behaviour was unprecedented in the annals of the convent. That -we, members of the Society of St. Aloysius, should have shown ourselves -so unworthy of our privileges, and so forgetful of our patron, was -a surprise even to her; though (she was frankness itself) she had -never entertained a good opinion either of our dispositions or of our -intelligence. The result of such misconduct was that the chaplain's -assistant must leave at once and forever. Not that _he_ had ever -wasted a thought upon any girl in the school. His heart was set upon -the priesthood. Young though he was, he had already suffered for the -Church. His father had fought and died in defence of the Holy See. His -home had been lost. He was a stranger in a far land. And now he must be -driven from the asylum he had sought, because we could not be trusted -to behave with that modesty and discretion which had always been the -fairest adornment of children reared within the convent's holy walls. -She hoped that we would understand how grievous was the wrong we had -done, and that even our callous hearts would bleed when we went to our -comfortable beds, and reflected that, because of our wickedness and -folly, a friendless and pious young student was once more alone in the -world. - -It was over! We trailed slowly up to the dormitory, too bewildered to -understand the exact nature of our misdoing. The most convincing proof -of our mental confusion is that our own immaculate innocence never -occurred to any of us. We had looked one night out of the window at -Marianus, and Elizabeth had written the five amorous verses. That was -all. Not one of us had spoken a word to the object of our affections. -Not one of us could boast a single glance, given or received. We had -done nothing; yet so engrossing had been the sentiment, so complete -the absorption of the past two months, that we, living in a children's -world of illusions,--"passionate after dreams, and unconcerned about -realities,"--had deemed ourselves players of parts, actors in an -unsubstantial drama, intruders into the realms of the forbidden. We -accepted this conviction with meekness, untempered by regret; but we -permitted ourselves a doubt as to whether our iniquity were wholly -responsible for the banishment of Marianus. The too strenuous pointing -of a moral breeds skepticism in the youthful soul. When Squire Martin -(of our grandfathers' reading-books) assured Billy Freeman that dogs -and turkey-cocks were always affable to children who studied their -lessons and obeyed their parents, that innocent little boy must have -soon discovered for himself that virtue is but a weak bulwark in the -barnyard. We, too, had lost implicit confidence in the fine adjustments -of life; and, upon this occasion, we found comfort in incredulity. On -the stairs Elizabeth remarked to me in a gloomy undertone that Marianus -could never have intended to stay at the convent, anyhow, and that he -probably had been "sent for." She did not say whence, or by whom; but -the mere suggestion was salve to my suffering soul. It enabled me, at -least, to bear the sight of Annie Churchill's tears, when, ten minutes -later, that weak-minded girl slid into my alcove (as if we were not in -trouble enough already), and, sitting forlornly on my bed, asked me in -a stifled whisper, "did I think that Marianus was really homeless, and -couldn't we make up a sum of money, and send it to him?" - -"How much have you got?" I asked her curtly. The complicated emotions -through which I had passed had left me in a savage humour; and the -peculiar infelicity of this proposal might have irritated St. Aloysius -himself. We were not allowed the possession of our own money, though -in view of the fact that there was ordinarily nothing to buy with it, -extravagance would have been impossible. Every Thursday afternoon -the "Bazaar" was opened; our purses, carefully marked with name and -number, were handed to us, and we were at liberty to purchase such -uninteresting necessities as writing-paper, stamps, blank-books, -pencils, and sewing materials. The sole concession to prodigality was -a little pile of pious pictures,--small French prints, ornamented with -lace paper, which it was our custom to give one another upon birthdays -and other festive occasions. They were a great resource in church, -where prayer-books, copiously interleaved with these works of art, were -passed to and fro for mutual solace and refreshment. - -All these things were as well known to Annie as to me, but she was too -absorbed in her grief to remember them. She mopped her eyes, and said -vacantly that she thought she had a dollar and a half. - -"I have seventy-five cents," I said; "and Elizabeth hasn't anything. -She spent all her money last Thursday. We might be able to raise five -dollars amongst us. If you think that much would be of any use to -Marianus, all you have to do is to ask Madame Bouron for our purses, -and for his address, and see if she would mind our writing and sending -it to him." - -Annie, impervious at all times to sarcasm, looked dazed for a moment, -her wet blue eyes raised piteously to mine. "Then you think we couldn't -manage it?" she asked falteringly. - -But I plunged my face into my wash-basin, as a hint that the -conversation was at an end. I, too, needed the relief of tears, and was -waiting impatiently to be alone. - -For Marianus had gone. Of that, at least, there was no shadow of doubt. -We should never see him again; and life seemed to stretch before -me in endless grey reaches of grammar, and arithmetic, and French -conversation; of getting up early in the morning, uncheered by the -thought of seeing Marianus serve Mass; of going to bed at night, with -never another glance at that dark shadow in the moonlight. I felt that -for me the page of love was turned forever, the one romance of my life -was past. I cried softly and miserably into my pillow; and resolved, as -I did so, that the next morning I would write on the fly-leaves of my -new French prayer-book and my "Thomas à Kempis" the lines:-- - - "'Tis better to have loved and lost, - Than never to have loved at all." - - - - -The Convent Stage - - -"From this hour I do renounce the creed whose fatal worship of bad -passions has led thee on, step by step, to this blood-guiltiness!" - -Elizabeth was studying her part. We were all studying our parts; but we -stopped to listen to this glowing bit of declamation, which Elizabeth -delivered with unbroken calm. "I drop down on my knees when I say -that," she observed gloomily. - -We looked at her with admiring, envious eyes. Our own rôles offered -no such golden opportunities. Lilly's, indeed, was almost as easily -learned as Snug's, being limited to three words, "The Christian slave?" -which were supposed to be spoken interrogatively; but which she -invariably pronounced as an abstract statement, bearing on nothing in -particular. It was seldom, however, that we insignificant little girls -of the Second Cours were permitted to take part in any play, and we -felt to the full the honour and glory of our positions. "I come on in -three scenes, and speak eleven times," I said, with a pride which I -think now strongly resembled Mr. Rushworth's. "What are you, Tony?" - -"A beggar child," said Tony. "I cry 'Bread! bread!' in piercing -accents" (she was reading from the stage directions), "and afterwards -say to Zara,--that's Mary Orr,--'Our thanks are due to thee, noble -lady, who from thy abundance feeds us once. Our love and blessings -follow her who gave us daily of her slender store.'" - -"Is that all?" - -"The other beggar child says nothing but 'Bread! bread!'" replied Tony -stiffly. - -"What a lot of costumes to get up for so many little parts!" commented -Elizabeth, ever prone to consider the practical aspect of things. - -"I am dressed in rags," said Tony. "They oughtn't to give much trouble." - -"Lilly and I are to be dressed alike," I said. "'Slaves of the royal -household.' Madame Rayburn said we were to wear Turkish trousers of -yellow muslin, with blue tunics, and red sashes tied at the side. Won't -we look like guys?" - -I spoke with affected disdain and real complacency, gloating--like Mr. -Rushworth--over the finery I pretended to despise. Elizabeth stared at -us dispassionately. "Lilly will look well in anything," she remarked -with disconcerting candour, at which Lilly blushed a lovely rose pink. -She knew how pretty she was, but she had that exquisite sweetness of -temper which is so natural an accompaniment of beauty. Perhaps we -should all be sweet-tempered if we could feel sure that people looked -at us with pleasure. - -"You will have to wear Turkish trousers, too," said Tony maliciously to -Elizabeth; "and get down on your knees in them." - -"No, I won't," returned Elizabeth scornfully. "I'm not a Turk. I'm a -Moorish princess,--Zara's niece." - -"Moors and Turks are the same," said Tony with conviction. - -"Moors and Turks are not the same," said Elizabeth. "Turks live in -Turkey, and Moors live--Whereabouts is this play, anyway, Marie?" - -"Granada," said Marie. "The Spanish army, under Ferdinand and Isabella, -is besieging Granada. I wish I were a Moor instead of a pious Spanish -lady. It would be a great deal more fun. I've always got pious parts." - -This was true, but then most of the parts in our convent plays -_were_ pious, and if they were given to Marie, it was because she -was so good an actress,--the only one our Second Cours could boast. -Elizabeth, indeed, had her merits. She never forgot her lines, never -was frightened, never blundered. But her absolutely unemotional -rendering of the most heroic sentiments chilled her hearers' hearts. -Marie was fervid and impassioned. Her _r-r_'s had the true Gallic -roll. Her voice vibrated feelingly. She was tall for thirteen, without -being hopelessly overgrown as Emily and I were. Strangest of all, she -did not seem to mind the foolish and embarrassing things which she -was obliged to do upon the stage. She would fling her arms around an -aged parent, and embrace her fondly. She would expound the truths of -Christianity, as St. Philomena. She would weep, and pray, and forgive -her enemies, as the luckless Madame Elisabeth. What is more, she would -do these things at rehearsals, in her short school frock, with unabated -fervour, and without a shade of embarrassment. We recognized her as a -Heaven-sent genius, second only to Julia Reynolds and Antoinette Mayo -(who I still think _must_ have been the greatest of living actresses), -yet in our secret souls we despised a little such absolute lack of -self-consciousness. We were so awkward and abashed when brought face -to face with any emotion, so incapable of giving it even a strangled -utterance, that Marie's absorption in her parts seemed to us a trifle -indecent. It was on a par with her rapid French, her lively gestures, -her openly expressed affection for the nuns she liked, and the -unconcern with which she would walk up the long classroom, between -two rows of motionless girls, to have a medal hung around her neck -on Sunday night at Primes. This hideous ordeal, which clouded our -young lives, was no more to Marie than walking upstairs,--no more than -unctuously repeating every day for a fortnight the edifying remarks of -the pious Spanish lady. - -Plays were the great diversions of our school life. We had two or -three of them every winter, presented, it seemed to me, with dazzling -splendour, and acted with passionate fire. I looked forward to these -performances with joyful excitement, I listened, steeped in delight, -I dreamed of them afterwards for weeks. The big girls who played in -them, and of whom I knew little but their names, were to me beings of -a remote and exalted nature. The dramas themselves were composed with -a view to our especial needs, or rather to our especial limitations. -Their salient feature was the absence of courtship and of love. It -was part of the convent system to ignore the master passion, to assume -that it did not exist, to banish from our work and from our play any -reference to the power that moves the world. The histories we studied -skipped chastely on from reign to reign, keeping always at bay this -riotous intruder. The books we read were as free as possible from any -taint of infection. The poems we recited were as serene and cold as -Teneriffe. "Love in the drama," says an acrimonious critic, "plays -rather a heavy part." It played no part at all in ours, and I am -disposed to look back now upon its enforced absence as an agreeable -elimination. The students of St. Omer--so I have been told--presented -a French version of "Romeo and Juliet," with all the love scenes -left out. This _tour de force_ was beyond our scope; but "She Stoops -to Conquer," shorn of its double courtship, made a vivacious bit of -comedy, and a translation of "Le Malade Imaginaire"--expurgated to -attenuation--was the most successful farce of the season. - -Of course the expurgation was not done by us. We knew Goldsmith and -Molière only in their convent setting, where, it is safe to say, they -would never have known themselves. Most of our plays, however, were -original productions, written by some one of the nuns whose talents -chanced to be of a dramatic order. They were, as a rule, tragic in -character, and devout in sentiment,--sometimes so exceedingly devout -as to resemble religious homilies rather than the legitimate drama. A -conversation held in Purgatory, which gave to three imprisoned souls -an opportunity to tell one another at great length, and with shameless -egotism, the faults and failings of their lives, was not--to our way -of thinking--a play. We listened unmoved to the disclosures of these -garrulous spirits, who had not sinned deeply enough to make their -revelations interesting. It was like going to confession on a large -and liberal scale. The martyrdom of St. Philomena was nearly as dull, -though the saint's defiance of the tyrant Symphronius--"persecutor of -the innocent, slayer of the righteous, despot whose knell has even -this hour rung"--lent a transient gleam of emotion; and the angel who -visited her in prison--and who had great difficulty getting his wings -through the narrow prison door--was, to my eyes at least, a vision of -celestial beauty. - -What we really loved were historical dramas, full of great names and -affecting incidents. Our crowning triumph (several times repeated) -was "Zuma," a Peruvian play in which an Indian girl is accused of -poisoning the wife of the Spanish general, when she is really trying -to cure her of a fever by giving her quinine, a drug known only to -the Peruvians, and the secret of which the young captive has sworn -never to divulge. "Zuma" was a glorious play. Its first production -marked an epoch in our lives. Gladly would we have given it a season's -run, had such indulgence been a possibility. There was one scene -between the heroine and her free and unregenerate sister, Italca, -which left an indelible impression upon my mind. It took place in a -subterranean cavern. The stage was darkened, and far-off music--the -sound of Spanish revelry--floated on the air. Italca brings Zuma a -portion of bark, sufficient only for her own needs,--for she too is -fever-stricken,--but, before giving it, asks with piercing scorn: "Are -you still an Inca's daughter, or a Castilian slave?"--a question at -which poor Zuma can only weep piteously, but which sent thrills of -rapture down my youthful spine. I have had my moments of emotion since -then. When Madame Bernhardt as La Tosca put the lighted candles on -either side of the murdered Scarpia, and laid the crucifix upon his -breast. When Madame Duse as Magda turned suddenly upon the sleek Von -Keller, and for one awful moment loosened the floodgates of her passion -and her scorn: "You have asked after Emma and after Katie. You have not -asked for your child." But never again has my soul gone out in such a -tumult of ecstasy as when Zuma and Italca, Christian and Pagan sisters, -the captive and the unconquered, faced each other upon our convent -stage. - -And now for the first time I--I, eleven years old, and with no shadowy -claim to distinction--was going to take part in a play, was going to -tread the boards in yellow Turkish trousers, and speak eleven times for -all the school to hear. No fear of failure, no reasonable misgivings -fretted my heart's content. Marie might scorn the Spanish lady's rôle; -but then Marie had played "Zuma,"--had reached at a bound the highest -pinnacle of fame. Elizabeth might grumble at giving up our recreation -hours to rehearsals; but then Elizabeth had been one of the souls in -Purgatory, the sinfullest soul, and the most voluble of all. Besides, -nothing ever elated Elizabeth. She had been selected once to make an -address to the Archbishop, and to offer him a basket of flowers; he had -inquired her name, and had said he knew her father; yet all this public -notice begot in her no arrogance of soul. Her only recorded observation -was to the effect that, if she were an archbishop, she wouldn't listen -to addresses; a suggestion which might have moved the weary and patient -prelate more than did the ornate assurances of our regard. - -With this shining example of insensibility before my eyes, I tried -hard to conceal my own inordinate pride. Rehearsals began before we -knew our parts, and the all-important matter of costumes came at once -under consideration. The "play-closet," that mysterious receptacle -of odds and ends, of frayed satins, pasteboard swords, and tarnished -tinsel jewelry, was soon exhausted of its treasures. Some of the bigger -girls, who were to be Spanish ladies in attendance upon Queen Isabella, -persuaded their mothers to lend them old evening gowns. The rest of -the clothes we manufactured ourselves, "by the pure light of reason," -having no models of any kind to assist or to disturb us. - -Happily, there were no Spanish men in the play. Men always gave a good -deal of trouble, because they might not, under any circumstances, be -clad in male attire. A short skirt, reaching to the knee, and generally -made of a balmoral petticoat, was the nearest compromise permitted. -Marlow, that consummate dandy, wore, I remember, a red and black -striped skirt, rubber boots, a black jacket, a high white collar, and -a red cravat. The cravat was given to Julia Reynolds, who played the -part, by her brother. It indicated Marlow's sex, and was considered -a little indecorous in its extreme mannishness. "They'll hardly know -what she" (Mrs. Potts) "is meant for, will they?" asks Mr. Snodgrass -anxiously, when that estimable lady proposes going to Mrs. Leo Hunter's -fancy ball as Apollo, in a white satin gown with spangles. To which -Mr. Winkle makes indignant answer: "Of course they will. They'll see -her lyre." With the same admirable acumen, we who saw Marlow's cravat -recognized him immediately as a man. - -Moors, and Peruvians, and ancient Romans were more easily attired. -They wore skirts as a matter of course, looked a good deal alike, -and resembled in the main the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," as costumed -by Mr. Abbey. It is with much pleasure I observe how closely--if how -unconsciously--Mr. Abbey has followed our convent models. His Valentine -might be Manco or Cléante strutting upon our school stage. His Titania -is a white-veiled first communicant. - -The Turkish trousers worn by Lilly and by me--also by Elizabeth, to -her unutterable disgust--were allowed because they were portions of -feminine attire. Made of rattling paper muslin, stiff, baggy, and -with a hideous tendency to slip down at every step, they evoked the -ribald mirth of all the other actors. Mary Orr, especially, having -firmly declined a pair as part of Zara's costume, was moved to such -unfeeling laughter at the first dress rehearsal that I could hardly -summon courage to stand by Lilly's side. "The more you show people you -mind a thing, the more they'll do it;" Elizabeth had once observed -out of the profundity of her school experience,--an experience which -dated from her seventh year. Her own armour of assumed unconcern was -provocation-proof. She had mistrusted the trousers from the beginning, -while I, thinking of Lalla Rookh and Nourmahal (ladies unknown to the -convent library), had exulted in their opulent Orientalism. She had -expressed dark doubts as to their fit and shape; and had put them on -with visible reluctance, and only because no choice had been allowed -her. The big girls arranged--within limits--their own costumes, but -the little girls wore what was given them. Yet the impenetrable calm -with which she presented herself dulled the shafts of schoolgirl -sarcasm. You might as well have tried to cauterize a wooden leg--to use -Mirabeau's famous simile--as to have tried to provoke Elizabeth. - -"Isabella of Castile" was a tragedy. Its heroine, Inez, was held a -captive by the Moors, and was occupying herself when the play opened -with the conversion to Christianity of Ayesha, the assumed daughter of -the ever-famous Hiaya Alnayar,--a splendid anachronism (at the siege -of Granada), worthy of M. Sardou. Inez embodied all the Christian -virtues, as presented only too often for our consideration. She was -so very good that she could hardly help suspecting how good she was; -and she never spoke without uttering sentiments so noble and exalted -that the Moors--simple children of nature--hated her unaffectedly, and -made life as disagreeable for her as they knew how. The powers of evil -were represented by Zara, sister of Hiaya, and the ruling spirit of -Granada. Enlightened criticism would now call Zara a patriot; but we -held sterner views. It was she who defied the Spaniards, who refused -surrender, and who, when hope had fled, plotted the murder of Isabella. -It was she who persecuted the saintly Inez, and whose dagger pierced -Ayesha's heart in the last tumultuous scene. A delightful part to act! -I knew every line of it before the rehearsals were over, and I used -to rant through it in imagination when I was supposed to be studying -my lessons, and when I was lying in my little bed. There were glowing -moments when I pictured to myself Mary Orr falling ill the very day of -the performance, Madame Rayburn in despair, everybody thunderstruck and -helpless, and I stepping modestly forward to confess I knew the part. -I saw myself suddenly the centre of attention, the forlorn hope of a -desperate emergency, my own insignificant speeches handed over to any -one who could learn them, and I storming through Zara's lines to the -admiration and wonder of the school. The ease with which I sacrificed -Mary Orr to this ambitious vision is pleasing now to contemplate; but I -believe I should have welcomed the Bubonic plague, with the prospect of -falling its victim the next day, to have realized my dreams. - - "One crowded hour of glorious life - Is worth an age without a name." - -It was a pity that none of this dramatic fervour found expression in -my own rôle, which, though modest, was not without its possibilities. -But I was ardent only in imagination, dramatic only in my dreams. When -it came to words, I was tame and halting; when it came to gestures, I -was awkward and constrained. In vain Madame Rayburn read and re-read -me my lines, which, in her clear, flexible voice, took on meaning -and purpose. In vain she sought to impress upon me my own especial -characteristics,--a slavish spitefulness and servility. It was my -privilege to appear in the first scene, and to make the first speech of -any importance,--to strike, as I was told, the keynote of the play. The -rising curtain revealed Ayesha (Julia Reynolds) in her father's palace; -Lilly and I in attendance. - -_Ayesha._ Send hither Inez. - -_Lilly._ (Her one great effort.) The Christian slave? - -_Ayesha_ (impatiently). Is there another Inez in the household? You -may both retire. - -Obediently we bowed and retired; but on the threshold I remarked to -Lilly in a bitter undertone, audible only to the house: "Ay! ay, we -may retire. And yet I think her noble kinsmen would deem our songs and -tales better amusement for a winter's eve than all these whispered -controversies on the Christian faith that last sometimes the whole -night through. I've overheard them. But wait until Zara returns." - -"Try and say those last words threateningly," Madame Rayburn would -entreat. "Remember you are going to betray Ayesha's secret. '_Wait_ -until Zara returns.' And you might clench your right hand. Your _right_ -hand. No, no, don't raise it. Julia, if you giggle so, I shall never be -able to teach the children anything. You embarrass and confuse them. -Try once more: '_Wait_ until Zara returns.' Now enter Inez. 'Lady, you -sent for me.'" - -Rehearsals were, on the whole, not an unmixed delight. A large circle -of amused critics is hardly conducive to ease, and the free expression -of dramatic force,--at least, not when one is eleven years old, and -painfully shy. I envied Marie her fervour and pathos, her clasped -hands and uplifted eyes. I envied Elizabeth her business-like repose, -the steady, if somewhat perfunctory, fashion in which she played her -part. I envied Lilly, who halted and stammered over her three words, -but whose beauty made amends for all shortcomings. Yet day by day I -listened with unabated interest to the familiar lines. Day by day -the climax awoke in me the same sentiments of pity and exultation. -Moreover, the distinction of being in the cast was something solid and -satisfactory. It lifted me well above the heads of less fortunate, -though certainly not less deserving, classmates. It enabled me to -assume an attitude toward Annie Churchill and Emily which I can only -hope they were generous enough to forgive. It was an honour universally -coveted, and worth its heavy cost. - -The night came. The stage was erected at one end of our big study-room -(classic-hall, we called it); the audience, consisting of the school -and the nuns, for no strangers were admitted on these occasions, sat in -serried ranks to witness our performance. Behind the scenes, despite -the frenzy of suppressed excitement, there reigned outward order and -tranquillity. The splendid precision of our convent training held good -in all emergencies. We revolved like spheres in our appointed orbits, -and confusion was foreign to our experience. I am inclined to think -that the habit of self-restraint induced by this gentle inflexibility -of discipline, this exquisite sense of method and proportion, was the -most valuable by-product of our education. There was an element of -dignity in being even an insignificant part of a harmonious whole. - -At the stroke of eight the curtain rose. Ayesha, reclining upon -cushions, and wearing all the chains and necklaces the school could -boast, listens with rapture to the edifying discourse of Inez, and -confesses her readiness to be baptized. Inez gives pious thanks for -this conversion, not forgetting to remind the Heavenly powers that it -was through her agency it was effected. Into this familiar atmosphere -of controversy the sudden return of Zara brings a welcome breath of -wickedness and high resolve. Granada is doomed. Her days are numbered. -The Spanish army, encamped in splendour, awaits her inevitable fall. -Her ruler is weak and vacillating. Her people cry for bread. But Zara's -spirit is unbroken. She finds Inez--in whom every virtue and every -grace conspire to exasperate--distributing her own portion of food -to clamorous beggars, and sweeps her sternly aside: "Dare not again -degrade a freeborn Moslem into a recipient of thy Christian charity." -She vows that if the city cannot be saved, its fall shall be avenged, -and that the proud Queen of Castile shall never enter its gates in -triumph. - -Dark whispers of assassination fill the air. The plot is touching in -its simplicity. Inez, a captive of rank, is to be sent as a peace -offering to the Spanish lines. Ayesha and Zoraiya (Elizabeth) accompany -her as pledges of good faith. Zara, disguised as a serving woman, goes -with them,--her soul inflamed with hate, her dagger hidden in her -breast. Ayesha is kept in ignorance of the conspiracy; but Zoraiya -knows,--knows that the queen is to be murdered, and that her own life -will help to pay the penalty. "Does she consent?" whispers a slave to -me; to which I proudly answer: "Consent! Ay, gladly. If it be well for -Granada that this Spanish queen should die, then Zara's niece, being of -Zara's blood, thinks neither of pity nor precaution. She says she deals -with the Castilian's life as with her own, and both are forfeited." - -The scene shifts--by the help of our imagination, for scene-shifters -we had none--to Santa Fe, that marvellous camp, more like a city than -a battlefield, where the Spaniards lie entrenched. It is an hour of -triumph for Inez, and, as might be expected, she bears herself with -superlative and maddening sanctity. She is all the Cardinal Virtues -rolled into one. - - To live with the Saints in Heaven - Is untold bliss and glory; - But to live with the saints on earth - Is quite another story. - -When I--meanly currying favour--beg her to remember that I have ever -stood her friend, she replies with proud humility: "I will remember -naught that I have seen, or heard, or suffered in Granada; and therein -lies your safety." - -The rôle of Isabella of Castile was played by Frances Fenton, a large, -fair girl, with a round face, a slow voice, and an enviable placidity -of disposition; a girl habitually decorated with all the medals, -ribbons, and medallions that the school could bestow for untarnished -propriety of behaviour. She wore a white frock of noticeable simplicity -("so great a soul as Isabella," said Madame Rayburn, "could never stoop -to vanity"), a blue sash, and a gold crown, which was one of our most -valued stage properties. Foremost among the ladies who surrounded her -was Marie, otherwise the Marchioness de Moya, mother of Inez, and -also--though this has still to be divulged--of the long-lost Ayesha. -It is while the marchioness is clasping Inez in her maternal arms, -and murmuring thanks to Heaven, and all the other Spanish ladies are -clasping their hands, and murmuring thanks to Heaven, that Zara sees -her opportunity to stab the unsuspecting queen. She steals cautiously -forward (my throbbing heart stood still), and draws the dagger--a -mother-of-pearl paper knife--from the folds of her dress. But Ayesha, -rendered suspicious by conversion, is watching her closely. Suddenly -she divines her purpose, and, when Zara's arm is raised to strike, she -springs forward to avert the blow. It pierces her heart, and with a -gasp she falls dying at Isabella's feet. - -Every word that followed is engraven indelibly upon my memory. I have -forgotten much since then, but only with death can this last scene be -effaced from my recollection. It was now that Elizabeth was to make her -vehement recantation, was to be converted with Shakespearian speed. -It was now she was to fall upon her knees, and abjure Mohammedanism -forever. She did not fall. She took a step forward, and knelt quietly -and decorously by Ayesha's side, as if for night prayers. Her volcanic -language contrasted strangely with the imperturbable tranquillity of -her demeanour. - -_Zoraiya._ Oh! Zara, thou hast slain her, slain the fair flower of -Granada. The darling of Hiaya's heart is dead. - -_Spanish Lady._ The girl speaks truth. 'Twas Zara's arm that struck. - -_Zoraiya_ (conscientiously). From this hour I do renounce the creed -whose fatal worship of bad passions has led thee on, step by step, to -this blood-guiltiness. - -_Zara._ Peace, peace, Zoraiya! Degrade not thyself thus for one not of -thy blood nor race. - -_Zoraiya._ Thy brother's child not of our blood nor race! Thy crime has -made thee mad. - -_Zara._ Thou shalt see. I would have word with the Marchioness de Moya. - -_Marchioness de Moya_ (springing forward). Why namest thou me, woman? O -Queen! why does this Moslem woman call on me? - -_Isabella_ (with uplifted eyes). Pray, pray! my friend. Naught else -can help thee in this hour which I see coming. For, oh! this is -Heaven-ordained. - -_Zara._ Thou hadst a daughter? - -_Marchioness de Moya._ I have one. - -_Zara._ One lost to thee in infancy, when Hiaya stormed Alhama. If -thou wouldst once again embrace her, take in thine arms thy dying child. - -_Marchioness de Moya_ (unsteadily). Thy hatred to our race is not -unknown. Thou sayest this, seeking to torture me. But know, 'twere not -torture, 'twere happiness, to believe thy words were words of truth. - -_Zara._ I would not make a Christian happy. But the words are spoken, -and cannot be withdrawn. For the rest, Hiaya, whose degenerate wife -reared as her own the captive child, will not dispute its truth, now -that she is passing equally away from him and thee. - -_Spanish Lady._ Oh! hapless mother! - -_Marchioness de Moya_ (proudly). Hapless! I would not change my dying -child for any living one in Christendom. - -And now, alas! that I must tell it, came the burning humiliation of my -childhood. Until this moment, as the reader may have noticed, no one -had offered to arrest Zara, nor staunch Ayesha's wound, nor call for -aid, nor do any of the things that would naturally have been done off -the stage. The necessity of explaining the situation had overridden--as -it always does in the drama--every other consideration. But now, while -the queen was busy embracing the marchioness, and while the Spanish -ladies were bending over Ayesha's body, it was my part to pluck Zara's -robe, and whisper: "Quick, quick, let us be gone! To linger here is -death." To which she scornfully retorts: "They have no thought of thee, -slave; and, as for me, I go to meet what fate Allah ordains:" and -slowly leaves the stage. - -But where _was_ I? Not in our convent schoolroom, not on our convent -stage; but in the queen's pavilion, witness to a tragedy which rent -my soul in twain. Ayesha (I had a passionate admiration for Julia -Reynolds), lying dead and lovely at my feet; Marie's pitiful cry -vibrating in my ears; and Zara's splendid scorn and hatred overriding -all pity and compunction. Wrapped in the contemplation of these things, -I stood speechless and motionless, oblivious of cues, unaware of Zara's -meaning glance, unconscious of the long, strained pause, or of Madame -Rayburn's loud prompting from behind the scenes. At last, hopeless -of any help in my direction, Zara bethought herself to say: "As for -me, I go to meet what fate Allah ordains:" and stalked off,--which -independent action brought me to my senses with a start. I opened my -mouth to speak, but it was too late; and, realizing the horror of my -position, I turned and fled,--fled to meet the flood-tide of Mary -Orr's reproaches. - -"Every one will think that I forgot my lines," she stormed. "Didn't you -see me looking straight at you, and waiting for my cue? The whole scene -was spoiled by your stupidity." - -I glanced miserably at Madame Rayburn. Of all the nuns I loved her -best; but I knew her too well to expect any comfort from her lips. Her -brown eyes were very cold and bright. "The scene was not spoiled," she -said judicially; "it went off remarkably well. But I did think, Agnes, -that, although you cannot act, you had too much interest in the play, -and too much feeling for the situation, to forget entirely where you -were, or what you were about. There, don't cry! It didn't matter much." - -Don't cry! As well say to the pent-up dam, "Don't overflow!" or to -the heaving lava-bed, "Don't leave your comfortable crater!" Already -my tears were raining down over my blue tunic and yellow trousers. -How could I--poor, inarticulate child--explain that it was because -of my absorbing interest in the play, my passionate feeling for the -situation, that I was now humbled to the dust, and that my career as an -actress was closed? - - - - -In Retreat - - -We were on the eve of a "spiritual retreat,"--four whole days of -silence,--and, in consideration of this fact, were enjoying the unusual -indulgence of an hour's recreation after supper. The gravity of the -impending change disturbed our spirits, and took away from us--such is -the irony of fate--all desire to talk. We were not precisely depressed, -although four days of silence, of sermons, of "religious exercises," -and examinations of conscience, might seem reasonably depressing. But -on the other hand,--happy adjustment of life's burdens,--we should have -no lessons to study, no dictations to write, no loathsome arithmetic -to fret our peaceful hearts. The absence of French for four whole -days was, in itself, enough to sweeten the pious prospect ahead of -us. Elizabeth firmly maintained she liked making retreats; but then -Elizabeth regarded her soul's perils with a less lively concern than I -did. She was not cursed with a speculative temperament. - -What we all felt, sitting silent and somewhat apprehensive in the -lamplight, was a desire to do something outrageous,--something which -should justify the plunge we were about to make into penitence and -compunction of heart. It was the stirring of the Carnival spirit within -us, the same intensely human impulse which makes the excesses of Shrove -Tuesday a prelude to the first solemn services of Lent. The trouble -with us was that we did not know what to do. Our range of possible -iniquities was at all times painfully limited. When I recall it, I -am fain to think of a pleasant conceit I once heard from Mr. Royce, -concerning the innocence of baby imps. Thanks to the closeness of our -guardianship, and to the pure air we breathed, no little circle of -azure-winged cherubim were ever more innocent than we; yet there were -impish promptings in every guiltless heart. Is it possible to look at -those cheerful, snub-nosed angels that circle around Fra Lippo Lippi's -madonnas, without speculating upon the superfluity of naughtiness that -must be forgiven them day by day? - -"We might blow out the lights," suggested Lilly feebly. - -Elizabeth shook her head, and the rest of us offered no response. -To blow out the schoolroom lamps was one of those heroic misdeeds -which could be attempted only in moments of supreme excitement, when -some breathless romping game had raised our spirits to fever pitch. -It was utterly out of keeping with our present mood, and besides -it was not really wrong,--only forbidden under penalties. We were -subtle enough--at least some of us were; nobody expected subtlety from -Lilly--to recognize the difference. - -A silence followed. Tony's chin was sunk in the palm of her hand. When -she lifted her head, her brown eyes shone with a flickering light. An -enchanting smile curved her crooked little mouth. "Let's steal the -straws from under the Bambino in the corridor," she said. - -We rose swiftly and simultaneously to our feet. Here was a crime, -indeed; a crime which offered the twofold stimulus of pillage and -impiety. The Bambino, a little waxen image we all ardently admired, -reposed under a glass case in the wide hall leading to the chapel. -He lay with his dimpled arms outstretched on a bed of symmetrically -arranged straws; not the common, fuzzy, barnyard straws, but those -large, smooth cylinders, through which all children love to suck up -lemonade and soda water. Soda water was to us an unknown beverage, -and lemonade the rarest of indulgences; but we had always coveted the -straws, though the unblessed thought of taking them had never entered -any mind before. Now, welcoming the temptation, and adding deceit -to all the other sins involved, we put on our black veils, and made -demure pretence of going to the chapel to pray. Except to go to the -chapel, five little girls would never have been permitted to leave the -schoolroom together; and, under ordinary circumstances, this sudden -access of piety might have awakened reasonable suspicions in the breast -of the Mistress of recreation. But the impending retreat made it seem -all right to her (she was no great student of human nature), and her -friendly smile, as we curtsied and withdrew, brought a faint throb of -shame to my perfidious soul. - -Once outside the door, we scuttled swiftly to the chapel hall. It was -silent and empty. Tony lifted the heavy glass cover which protected the -Bambino,--the pretty, helpless baby we were going to ruthlessly rob. -For a moment my inborn reverence conquered, and I stooped to kiss the -waxen feet. Then, surging hotly through my heart, came the thought,--a -Judas kiss; and with a shudder I pulled myself away. By this time, I -didn't want the straws, I didn't want to take them at all; but, when -one sins in company, one must respect one's criminal obligations. -"Honour among thieves." Hurriedly we collected our spoils,--ten shining -tubes, which left horrid gaps in the Bambino's bed. Then the case was -lowered, and we stood giggling and whispering in the corridor. - -"Let's"--said Tony. - -But what new villainy she meditated, we never knew. The chapel door -opened,--it was Madame Bouron,--and we fled precipitately back to the -schoolroom. As we reached it, the clanging of a bell struck dolorously -upon our ears. Our last free hour was over, and silence, the unbroken -silence of four days, had fallen like a pall upon the convent. We took -off our veils, and slipped limply into line for prayers. - -The next morning a new order of things reigned throughout the hushed -school. The French conversation, which ordinarily made pretence -of enlivening our breakfast hour, was exchanged for a soothing -stillness. In place of our English classes, we had a sermon from Father -Santarius, some chapters of religious reading, and a quiet hour to -devote to any pious exercise we deemed most profitable to our souls. -Dinner and supper were always silent meals, and one of the older -girls read aloud to us,--a pleasant and profitable custom. Now the -travels of Père Huc--a most engaging book--was laid aside in favour of -Montalembert's "Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary,"--which also had its -charm. Many deficiencies there were in our educational scheme,--it was -so long ago,--but the unpardonable sin of commonplaceness could never -be counted its shortcoming. After dinner there was an "instruction" -from one of the nuns, and more time for private devotions. Then -came our three-o'clock _goûter_, followed by a second instruction, -Benediction, and the Rosary. After supper, Father Santarius preached -to us again in the dimly lit chapel, and our fagged little souls were -once more forcibly aroused to the contemplation of their imminent -peril. Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven--which the catechism says are -"the four last things to be remembered"--were the subjects of the four -night sermons. Those were not days when soothing syrup was administered -in tranquillizing doses from the pulpit. - -A sense of mystery attached itself to Father Santarius, attributable, I -think, to his immense size, which must have equalled that of St. Thomas -Aquinas. It was said that he had not seen his own feet for twenty -years (so vast a bulk intervened), and this interesting legend was a -source of endless speculation to little, lean, elastic girls. He was -an eloquent and dramatic preacher, versed in all the arts of oratory, -and presenting a striking contrast to our dull and gentle chaplain, -one of the kindest and most colourless of men, to whose sermons we -had long ceased to listen very attentively. We listened to Father -Santarius, listened trembling while he thundered his denunciations -against worldliness, and infidelity, and pride of place, and many -dreadful sins we stood in no immediate danger of committing. The -terrors of the Judgment Day were unfurled before our startled eyes with -the sympathetic appreciation of a fifteenth-century fresco, and the -dead weight of eternity oppressed our infant souls. Father Santarius -knew his Hell as well as did Dante, and his Heaven (but we had not yet -come to Heaven) a great deal better. Moreover, while Dante's Hell was -arranged for the accommodation of those whom he was pleased to put in -it, Father Santarius's Hell was prepared for the possible accommodation -of _us_,--which made a vast difference in our philosophy. Perhaps a -similar sense of liability might have softened the poet's vision. The -third night's sermon reduced Annie Churchill to hysterical sobs; Marie -was very white, and Elizabeth looked grave and uncomfortable. As for -me, my troubled heart must have found expression in my troubled eyes, -when I raised them to Madame Rayburn's face as we filed out of the -chapel. She was not given to caresses, but she laid her hand gently on -my black-veiled head. "Not for you, Agnes," she said, "not for you. -Don't be fearful, child!" thus undoing in one glad instant the results -of an hour's hard preaching, and sending me comforted to bed. - -The next afternoon I was seated at my desk in the interval between an -instruction on "human respect"--which we accounted a heavy failing--and -Benediction. We were all of us to go to confession on the following -day; and, by way of preparation for this ordeal, I was laboriously -examining my conscience, and writing down a list of searching -questions, which were supposed to lay bare the hidden iniquities of -my life, and to pave the way to those austere heights of virtue I -hopefully expected to climb. It was a lengthy process, and threatened -to consume most of the afternoon. - -"Is my conversation always charitable and edifying?" - -"Do I pride myself upon my talents and accomplishments?" - -"Have I freed my heart from all inordinate affection for created -things?" - -"Do I render virtue attractive and pleasing to those who differ from me -in religion?"--I wrote slowly in my little, cramped, legible hand. - -At this point Elizabeth crossed the schoolroom, and touched me on -the shoulder. She carried her coral rosary, which she dangled before -my eyes for a minute, and then pointed to the door, an impressive -dumb show which meant that we should go somewhere, and say our beads -together. There were times when the sign language we used in retreat -became as animated as conversation, and a great deal more distracting, -because of the difficulty we had in understanding it; but the -discipline of those four days demanded above all things that we should -not speak an unnecessary word. We became fairly skilled in pantomime by -the time the days were over. - -On the present occasion, Elizabeth's rosary gave its own message, and -I alacritously abandoned my half-tilled conscience for this new field -of devotion. We meant to walk up and down the chapel hall (past the -de-spoiled Bambino), but at the schoolroom door we encountered Madame -Rayburn. - -"Where are you going, children?" she asked. - -This being an occasion for articulate speech, Elizabeth replied that we -were on our way to the corridor to say our beads. - -"You had better be out of doors," Madame Rayburn said. "You look as -if you needed fresh air. Go into the avenue until the bell rings for -Benediction. No farther, remember, or you may be late. You had better -take your veils with you to save time." - -This _was_ being treated with distinction. Sent out of doors by -ourselves, just as if we were First Cours girls,--those privileged -creatures whom we had seen for the last three days pacing gravely -and silently up and down the pleasant walks. No such liberty had -ever been accorded to us before, and I felt a thrill of pride when -Julia Reynolds--walking alone in the avenue--raised her eyes from the -"Pensées Chrétiennes" of Madame Swetchine (I recognized its crimson -cover, having been recently obliged to translate three whole pages of -it as a penance), and stared at us with the abstract impersonal gaze of -one engrossed in high spiritual concerns. It was a grey day in early -June, a soft and windless day, and, as we walked sedately under the big -mulberry trees, a sense of exquisite well-being stole into my heart. -I was conscious of some faint appreciation of the tranquillity that -breathed around me, some dim groping after the mystery of holiness, -some recognizable content in the close companionship of my friend. I -forgot that I was going to free myself from all inordinate affection -for created things, and knew only that it was pleasant to walk by -Elizabeth's side. - -"Let us contemplate in this second joyful mystery the visitation of the -Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin, St. Elizabeth," she said. - -Why, there it was! The Blessed Virgin's cousin was named Elizabeth, -too. Of course they were friends; perhaps they were very fond of -each other; only St. Elizabeth was so much too old. Could one have a -real friend, years older than one's self? My mind was wandering over -this aspect of the case while I pattered my responses, and my pearl -beads--not half so pretty as Elizabeth's coral ones--slipped quickly -through my fingers. When we had finished the five decades, and had said -the _De profundis_ for the dead, there was still time on our hands. The -chapel bell had not yet rung. We walked for a few minutes in silence, -and then I held up my rosary as a suggestion that we should begin the -sorrowful mysteries. But Elizabeth shook her head. - -"Let's have a little serious conversation," she said. - -Not Balaam, when he heard the remonstrance of his ass, not Albertus -Magnus, when the brazen head first opened its lips and spoke, was more -startled and discomfited than I. Such a proposal shook my moral sense -to its foundations. But Elizabeth's light blue eyes--curiously light, -by contrast with her dark skin and hair--were raised to mine with -perfect candour and good faith. It was plain that she did not hold -herself a temptress. - -"A little _serious_ conversation," she repeated with emphasis. - -For a moment I hesitated. Three speechless days made the suggestion a -very agreeable one, and I was in the habit of consenting to whatever -Elizabeth proposed. But conversation, even serious conversation, -was a daring innovation for a retreat, and I was not by nature an -innovator. Then suddenly a happy thought came to me. I had brought -along my Ursuline Manual (in those days we went about armed with all -our spiritual weapons), and I opened it at a familiar page. - -"Let's find out our predominant passions," I said. - -Elizabeth consented joyfully. Her own prayer-book was French, a -_Paroissien Romain_, and the predominant passions had no place in it. -She was evidently flattered by the magnificence of the term, as applied -to her modest transgressions. It was something to know--at twelve--that -one was possessed of a passion to predominate. - -"We'll skip the advice in the beginning?" she said. - -I nodded, and Elizabeth, plunging, as was her wont, into the heart of -the matter, read with impressive solemnity:-- - -"The predominant passion of many young people is pride, which never -fails to produce such haughtiness of manner and self-sufficiency as to -render them equally odious and ridiculous. Incessantly endeavouring -to attract admiration, and become the sole objects of attention, they -spare no pains to set themselves off, and to outdo their companions. -By their conceited airs, their forwardness, their confidence in their -own opinions, and neglect or contempt of that timid, gentle, retiring -manner, so amiable and attractive in youth, they defeat their own -purpose, and become as contemptible as they aim at being important." - -There was a pause. The description sounded so little like either of us -that I expected Elizabeth to go right on to more promising vices. But -she was evidently turning the matter over in her mind. - -"I think that's Adelaide Harrison's predominant passion," she said at -length. - -Somewhat surprised, I acquiesced. It had not occurred to me to send my -thoughts wandering over the rest of the school, or I should, perhaps, -have reached some similar conclusion. - -"Yes, it's certainly Adelaide Harrison's passion," Elizabeth went on -thoughtfully. "You remember how she behaved about that composition of -hers, 'The Woods in Autumn,' that Madame Duncan thought so fine. She -said she ought to be able to write a good composition when her mother -had written a whole volume of poems, and her brother had written -something else,--I don't remember what. That's what _I_ call pride." - -"She says they are a talented family," I added maliciously. ("Is my -conversation always charitable and edifying?") "That she taught herself -to read when she was six years old, and that they all speak French when -they are together. I don't believe that." - -"It must be horrid, if they do," said Elizabeth. "I'm glad I'm not one -of them. Vous ne mangez rien, ma chère Adelaide. Est-ce que vous êtes -malade?" - -"Hélas! oui, mon père. J'ai peur que j'étudie trop. Go on, Elizabeth, -I'm afraid the bell will ring." - -Thus adjured, Elizabeth continued: "There are many young people whose -predominant passion is a certain ill-humour, fretfulness, peevishness, -or irritability, which pervades their words, manners, and even looks. -It is usually brought into action by such mere trifles that there is -no chance of peace for those who live in the house with them. Even -their best friends are not always secure from their ill-tempered -sallies, their quarrelsome moods. Pettish and perverse, they throw a -gloom over the gayest hour, and the most innocent amusement. As this -luckless disposition is peculiarly that of women, young girls cannot be -too earnestly recommended to combat the tendency in youth, lest they -become, when older, the torment of that society they are intended to -bless and ornament." - -Another pause,--a short one this time. Elizabeth's eyes met mine with -an unspoken question, and I nodded acquiescence. "Tony!" we breathed -simultaneously. - -It was true. Tony's engaging qualities were marred by a most prickly -temper. We knew her value well. She played all games so admirably that -the certainty of defeat modified our pleasure in playing with her. -She was fleet of foot, ready of wit, and had more fun in her little -brown head than all the rest of us could muster. She would plunge us -into abysses of mischief with one hand, and extricate us miraculously -with the other. She was startlingly truthful, and lived nobly up to our -wayward but scrupulous standard of schoolgirl honour, to the curious -code of ethics by which we regulated our lives. She might have been -Elizabeth's vice-regent; she might even have disputed the authority of -our constitutional sovereign, and have led us Heaven knows whither, -had it not been for her pestilential quarrelsomeness. How often had -she and I started out at the recreation hour in closest amity, and had -returned, silent and glowering, with the wide gravel walk between us. -If she were in a fractious mood, no saint from Paradise could have kept -the peace. Therefore, when Elizabeth looked at me, we said "Tony!" and -then stopped short. She was our friend, one of the band, and though we -granted her derelictions, we would not discuss them. We could be ribald -enough at Adelaide Harrison's expense, but not at Tony's. - -"Why don't you lend her this book?" said Elizabeth kindly. - -I shook my head. I knew why very well. And I rather think Elizabeth -did, too. - -By this time it looked as if we were going to fit the whole school with -predominant passions, and not find any for ourselves; but the next line -Elizabeth read struck a chill into my soul, and, as she went on, every -word seemed like a barbed arrow aimed unswervingly at me. - -"A propensity to extravagant partialities is a fault which frequently -predominates in some warm, impetuous characters. These persons are -distinguished by a precipitate selection of favourites in every -society; by an overflow of marked attentions to the objects of their -predilection, whose interests they espouse, whose very faults they -attempt to justify, whose opinions they support, whether right or -wrong, and whose cause they defend, often at the expense of good sense, -charity, moderation, and even common justice. Woe to him who ventures -to dissent from them. The friendship or affection of such characters -does not deserve to be valued, for it results, not from discernment of -merit, but from blind prejudice. Besides, they annoy those whom they -think proper to rank among their favourites by expecting to engross -their whole attention, and by resenting every mark of kindness they may -think proper to show to others. However, as their affections are in -general as short-lived as they are ardent, no one person is likely to -be long tormented with the title of their friend." - -I was conscious of two flaming cheeks as we walked for a moment in -silence, and I glanced at Elizabeth out of the tail of my eye to see -if she were summing up my case. It wasn't true, it couldn't be true, -that extravagant partialities (when they were _my_ partialities) were -short-lived. I was preparing to combat this part of the accusation when -Elizabeth's cool voice dispelled my groundless fears. - -"I think that's silly," she said. "Nobody is like that." - -The suddenness of my relief made me laugh outright, and then,--Oh, -baseness of the human heart!--I sought to strengthen my own position by -denouncing some one else. "Not Annie Churchill?" I asked. - -Elizabeth considered. "No, not even Annie Churchill. What makes you -think of her?" - -It was an awkward question. How could I say that two nights before the -retreat, Annie had slipped into my alcove,--a reprehensible habit she -had,--and, with an air of mystery, had informed me she was "trying to -do something,"--she didn't like to tell me what, because she thought -that maybe I was trying to do it, too. Upon my intimating that I was -trying to go to bed, and nothing else that I knew of, she had said -quite solemnly: "I am trying to gain Elizabeth's affections." As it was -impossible for me to adduce this piece of evidence (even an unsought -confidence we held sacred), I observed somewhat lamely: "Oh, she does -seem to get suddenly fond of people." - -"Who's she fond of?" asked the unsuspecting--and -ungrammatical--Elizabeth. - -"Oh, do go on!" I urged, and, even as I said it, the Benediction -bell rang. A score of girls, serious, black-veiled young penitents, -appeared, as if by magic, hastening to the chapel. We joined them -silently, and filed into rank. Already my conscience was pricking. Had -our "serious" conversation been either charitable or edifying? Was it -for this that Madame Rayburn had sent us out to walk under the mulberry -trees? - -It pricked harder still--this sore little conscience--the next day, -when Lilly came to me, looking downcast and miserable. "Madame Duncan -said I might speak to you," she whispered, "because it was about -something important. It _is_ important, very. Father Santarius is sure -to tell us we must put those straws back, and I've broken one of mine." - -Straws! I stared at her aghast. Where were my straws? I didn't know. I -hadn't the faintest idea. I had lost them both, as I lost everything -else, except the empty head so firmly, yet so uselessly fixed upon -my shoulders. It was really wonderful that a little girl who had only -three places in the world in which to put anything--a desk, a washstand -drawer, and a japanned dressing-case (our clothes were all kept for us -with exquisite neatness in the vestry)--should not have known where -her few possessions were; but I could have lost them all in any of -these receptacles, and never have found one of them again. When a mad -scramble through my desk had furnished incontestable proof that no -straws were there, and Lilly had departed, somewhat comforted by my -more desperate case, I sat gloomily facing the complicated problem -before me. I must confess my sin, I would be called upon to make -restitution, and I had nothing to restore. The more I thought about it, -the more hopeless I grew, and the more confused became my sense of -proportion. If I had stolen the Bambino himself,--as a peasant woman, -it is said, once stole the Baby of Ara-Coeli,--I could not have felt -guiltier. - -"Agnes," said Madame Rayburn's voice, "you had better go to the chapel -now, and prepare for confession." - -She was looking down on me, and, as I rose to my feet, a light broke in -upon my darkness. I knew where to turn for help. - -"If you've taken a thing, and you haven't got it any more to give it -back, what can you do?" I asked. - -The suddenness with which my query was launched (I always hated -roundabout approaches) startled even this seasoned nun. "If you've -taken a thing," she echoed. "Do you mean stolen?" - -"Yes," I answered stolidly. - -She looked astonished for a moment, and then the shadow of a smile -passed over her face. "Is it something you have eaten?" she asked, "and -that is why you cannot give it back?" - -I laughed a little miserable laugh. It was natural that this solution -of the problem should present itself to Madame Rayburn's mind, albeit -we were not in the fruit season. But then, it had once happened that a -collation had been set for the Archbishop and some accompanying priests -in the conference room, and that Elizabeth, Lilly, and I, spying -through a half-open door the tempting array of sandwiches and cake, -had descended like Harpies upon the feast. This discreditable incident -lingered, it was plain, in Madame Rayburn's memory, and prompted her -question. - -"No, it wasn't anything to eat," I said; and then, recognizing the -clemency of her mood (she was not always clement), I revealed the -sacrilegious nature of my spoliation. "And I've lost them, and can't -put them back," I wound up sorrowfully. - -Madame Rayburn looked grave. Whether it was because she was shocked, or -because she was amused and wanted to conceal her amusement, I cannot -say. "Did you do this by yourself?" she said; and then, seeing my face, -added hastily: "No, I won't ask you that question. It isn't fair, and -besides, I know you won't answer. But if there are any more straws in -anybody's possession, I want you to bring them to me to-night. That's -all. Now go to confession. Say you've told, and that it's all right." - -I was dismissed. With a light heart I sped to the chapel. To see one's -way clear through the intricacies of life; to be sure of one's next -step, and of a few steps to follow,--at eleven, or at threescore and -ten, this is beatitude. - -It was Saturday morning when we emerged from retreat, a clear, warm -Saturday in June. Mass was over, and we filed down in measureless -content to the refectory. Because of our four days' silence, we were -permitted to speak our blessed mother tongue at breakfast time. -Therefore, instead of the dejected murmur which was the liveliest -expression of our Gallic eloquence, there rose upon the startled air a -clamorous uproar, a high, shrill, joyous torrent of sound. A hundred -girls were talking fast and furiously to make up for lost time. We -had hot rolls for breakfast, too, a luxury reserved for such special -occasions; and we were all going to the woods in the afternoon, both -First and Second Cours,--going for two long, lovely hours, which would -give us time to reach the farthest limits of our territory. Elizabeth -came and squeezed herself on the bench beside me, to propose a private -search for the white violets that grew in the marshy ground beyond -the lake, and that bloomed long after the wood violets had gone. Tony -shouted across two intervening benches that she didn't see why we could -not secure the boat, and have a row,--as if the Second Cours girls were -at all likely to get possession of the boat when the First Cours girls -were around. "We can, if we try," persisted Tony, in whom four days of -peaceful meditation had bred the liveliest inclination for a brawl. As -for me, I ate my roll, and looked out of the window at the charming -vista stretching down to the woods; and my spirits mounted higher and -higher with the rising tide of joy, with the glad return to the life of -every day. Heaven, an assured hereafter, had receded comfortably into -the dim future. Hell was banished from our apprehensions. But, oh, how -beautiful was the world! - - - - -Un Congé sans Cloche - - -We had only two or three of them in the year, and their slow approach -stirred us to frenzy. In the dark ages, when I went to school, no one -had yet discovered that play is more instructive than work, no one was -piling up statistics to prove the educational value of idleness. In -the absence of nature studies and athletics, we were not encouraged -to spend our lives out of doors. In the absence of nerve specialists, -we were not tenderly restrained from studying our lessons too hard. -It is wonderful how little apprehension on this score was felt by -either mothers or teachers. We had two months' summer holiday,--July -and August,--and a week at Christmas time. The rest of the year we -spent at school. I have known parents so inhuman as to regret those -unenlightened days. - -But can the glorified little children whose lives seem now to be -one vast and happy playtime, can the privileged schoolgirls who -are permitted to come to town for a matinée,--which sounds to me -as fairy-like as Cinderella's ball,--ever know the real value of a -holiday? As well expect an infant millionaire to know the real value -of a quarter. We to whom the routine of life was as inevitable as the -progress of the seasons, we to whom Saturdays were as Mondays, and who -grappled with Church history and Christian doctrine on pleasant Sunday -mornings, _we_ knew the mad tumultuous joy that thrilled through hours -of freedom. The very name which from time immemorial had been given to -our convent holidays illustrated the fulness of their beatitude. When -one lives under the dominion of bells, every hour rung in and out -with relentless precision, _sans cloche_ means glorious saturnalia. -Once a nervous young nun, anxious at the wild scattering of her flock, -ventured, on a _congé_, to ring them back to bounds; whereupon her -bell was promptly, though not unkindly, taken away from her by two of -the older girls. And when the case was brought to court, the Mistress -General upheld their action. A law was a law, as binding upon its -officers as upon the smallest subject in the realm. - -The occasions for a _congé sans cloche_ were as august as they were -rare. "Mother's Feast," by which we meant the saint's day of the -Superioress, could always be reckoned upon. The feast of St. Joseph was -also kept in this auspicious fashion,--which gave us a great "devotion" -to so kind a mediator. Once or twice in the year the Archbishop came -to the convent, and in return for our addresses, our curtsies, our -baskets of flowers, and songs of welcome, always bravely insisted that -we should have a holiday. "Be sure and tell me, if you don't get it," -he used to say, which sounded charmingly confidential, though we well -knew that we should never have an opportunity to tell him anything of -the kind, and that we should never dare to do it, if we had. - -In the year of grace which I now chronicle, the Archbishop was going -to Rome, and had promised to say good-by to us before he sailed. Those -were troubled times for Rome. Even we knew that something was wrong, -though our information did not reach far beyond this point. Like the -little girl who couldn't tell where Glasgow was, because she had not -finished studying Asia Minor, we were still wandering belated in the -third Crusade,--a far cry from united Italy. When Elizabeth, who had -read the address, said she wondered why the Pope was called "God's -great martyr saint," we could offer her very little enlightenment. I -understand that children now interest themselves in current events, and -ask intelligent questions about things they read in the newspapers. -For us, the Wars of the Roses were as yesterday, and the Crusades were -still matters for deep concern. Berengaria of Navarre had been the -"leading lady" of our day's lesson, and I had written in my "Compendium -of History"--majestic phrase--this interesting and comprehensive -statement: "Berengaria led a blameless life, and, after her husband's -death, retired to a monastery, where she passed the remainder of her -days." - -It was the middle of May when the Archbishop came, and, as the -weather was warm, we wore our white frocks for the occasion. Very -immaculate we looked, ranged in a deep, shining semicircle, a blue -ribbon around every neck, and gloves on every folded hand. It would -have been considered the height of impropriety to receive, ungloved, -a distinguished visitor. As the prelate entered, accompanied by the -Superioress and the Mistress General, we swept him a deep curtsy,--oh, -the hours of bitter practice it took to limber my stiff little knees -for those curtsies!--and then broke at once into our chorus of -welcome:-- - - "With happy hearts we now repair - All in this joyous scene to share." - -There were five verses. When we had finished, we curtsied again and sat -down, while Mary Rawdon and Eleanor Hale played a nervous duet upon the -piano. - -The Archbishop looked at us benignantly. It was said of him that he -dearly loved children, but that he was apt to be bored by adults. He -had not what are called "social gifts," and seldom went beyond the -common civilities of intercourse. But he would play jackstraws all -evening with half a dozen children, and apparently find himself much -refreshed by the entertainment. His eyes wandered during the duet to -the ends of the semicircle, where sat the very little girls, as rigidly -still as cataleptics. Wriggling was not then deemed the prescriptive -right of childhood. An acute observer might perhaps have thought -that the Archbishop, seated majestically on his dais, and flanked -by Reverend Mother and Madame Bouron, glanced wistfully at these -motionless little figures. We were, in truth, as remote from him as if -we had been on another continent. Easy familiarity with our superiors -was a thing undreamed of in our philosophy. The standards of good -behaviour raised an impassable barrier between us. - -Frances Fenton made the address. It was an honour once accorded to -Elizabeth, but usually reserved as a reward for superhuman virtue. -Not on _that_ score had Elizabeth ever enjoyed it. Frances was first -blue ribbon, first medallion, and head of the Children of Mary. There -was nothing left for her but beatification. She stepped slowly, and -with what was called a "modest grace," into the middle of the room, -curtsied, and began:-- - - "Your children's simple hearts would speak, - But cannot find the words they seek. - These tones no music's spell can lend; - And eloquence would vainly come - To greet our Father, Guide, and Friend. - Let hearts now speak, and lips be dumb!" - -"Then why isn't she dumb?" whispered Tony aggressively, but without -changing a muscle of her attentive face. - -I pretended not to hear her. I had little enough discretion, Heaven -knows, but even I felt the ripe unwisdom of whispering at such a time. -It was Mary Rawdon's absence, at the piano, I may observe, that placed -me in this perilous proximity. - - "Our reverence fond and hopeful prayer - Will deck with light one empty place, - And fill with love one vacant chair." - -"What chair?" asked Tony, and again I pretended not to hear. - - "For e'en regret can wear a softened grace, - And smiling hope in whispers low - Will oft this cherished thought bestow: - Within the Eternal City's sacred wall, - He who has blest us in our Convent hall - Can now to us earth's holiest blessing bring - From God's great martyr saint, Rome's pontiff king." - -At this point, Tony, maddened by my unresponsiveness, shot out a -dexterous little leg (I don't see how she dared to do it, when our -skirts were so short), and, with lightning speed, kicked me viciously -on the shins. The anguish was acute, but my sense of self-preservation -saved me from so much as a grimace. Madame Bouron's lynx-like gaze was -travelling down our ranks, and, as it rested on me for an instant, -I felt that she must see the smart. Tony's expression was one of -rapt and reverent interest. By the time I had mastered my emotions, -and collected my thoughts, the address was over, and the Archbishop -was saying a few words about his coming voyage, and about the Holy -Father, for whom he bade us pray. Then, with commendable promptness, -he broached the important subject of the _congé_. There was the usual -smiling demur on Reverend Mother's part. The children had so many -holidays ("I like that!" snorted Tony), so many interruptions to their -work. It was so hard to bring them back again to quiet and orderly -ways. If she granted this indulgence, we must promise to study with -double diligence for the approaching examinations. Finally she yielded, -as became a dutiful daughter of the Church; the first of June, ten days -off, was fixed as the date; and we gave a hearty round of applause, -in token of our gratitude and relief. After this, we rather expected -our august visitor to go away; but his eyes had strayed again to the -motionless little girls at the horns of the semicircle; and, as if they -afforded him an inspiration, he said something in low, rather urgent -tones to Reverend Mother,--something to which she listened graciously. - -"They will be only too proud and happy," we heard her murmur; and then -she raised her voice. - -"Children," she said impressively, "his Grace is good enough to ask -that you should escort him to the woods this afternoon. Put on your -hats and go." - -This _was_ an innovation! Put on our hats at four o'clock--the hour -for French class--and walk to the woods with the Archbishop. It was -delightful, of course, but a trifle awesome. If, in his ignorance, he -fancied we should gambol around him like silly lambs, he was soon to -discover his mistake. Our line of march more closely resembled that of -a well-drilled army. Madame Bouron walked on his right hand, and Madame -Duncan on his left. The ribbons, the graduates, and a few sedate girls -from the first class closed into a decorous group, half of them walking -backwards,--a convent custom in which we were wonderfully expert. The -flanks of the army were composed of younger and less distinguished -girls, while the small fry hovered on its borders, out of sight and -hearing. We moved slowly, without scattering, and without obvious -exhilaration. I was occupied in freeing my mind in many bitter words -to Tony, who defended her conduct on the score of my "setting up for -sainthood,"--an accusation the novelty of which ought to have made it -agreeable. - -When we reached the lake, a tiny sheet of water with a Lilliputian -island, we came to a halt. The Archbishop had evidently expressed -some desire, or at least some readiness, to trust himself upon the -waves. The boat was unmoored, and Frances Fenton and Ella Holrook -rowed him carefully around the island, while the rest of us were drawn -up on shore to witness the performance. We made, no doubt, a very -nice picture in our white frocks and blue neck ribbons; but we were -spectators merely, still far remote from any sense of companionship. -When the boat was close to shore, the Archbishop refused to land. He -sat in the stern, looking at us with a curious smile. He was strikingly -handsome,--a long, lean, noble-looking old man,--and he had a voice of -wonderful sweetness and power. It was said that, even at sixty-five, -he sang the Mass more beautifully than any priest in his diocese. -Therefore it was a little alarming when he suddenly asked:-- - -"My children, do you know any pretty songs?" - -"Oh, yes, your Grace," answered Madame Bouron. - -"Then sing me something now," said the Archbishop, still with that -inscrutable smile. - -There was a moment's hesitation, a moment's embarrassment, and then, -acting under instruction, we sang (or, at least, some of us did; there -was no music in my soul) the "Canadian Boat-Song," and "Star of the -Sea,"--appropriate, both of them, to the watery expanse before us. - - "_Ave Maria_, we lift our eyes to thee; - _Ora pro nobis_; 'tis night far o'er the sea." - -The Archbishop listened attentively, and with an evident pleasure that -must have been wholly disassociated from any musical sense. Then his -smile deepened. "Would you like me to sing for you?" he said. - -"Oh, yes, if you please," we shrilled; and Madame Bouron gave us a -warning glance. "Be very still, children," she admonished. "His Grace -is going to sing." - -His Grace settled himself comfortably in the boat. His amused glance -travelled over our expectant faces, and sought as usual the little -girls, now close to the water's edge. Then he cleared his throat, and, -as I am a Christian gentlewoman, and a veracious chronicler, _this_ is -the song he sang:-- - - "In King Arthur's reign, a merry reign, - Three children were sent from their homes, - Were sent from their homes, were sent from their homes, - And they never went back again. - - "The first, he was a miller, - The second, he was a weaver, - The third, he was a little tailor boy, - Three big rogues together." - -"Can't you join in the chorus, children?" interrupted the Archbishop. -"Come! the last two lines of every verse." - - "The third, he was a little tailor boy, - Three big rogues together." - -Our voices rose in a quavering accompaniment to his mellifluous notes. -We were petrified; but, even in a state of petrification, we did as we -were bidden. - - "The miller, he stole corn, - The weaver, he stole yarn, - And the little tailor boy, he stole broadcloth, - To keep these three rogues warm." - -"Chorus!" commanded the Archbishop; and this time our voices were -louder and more assured. - - "And the little tailor boy, he stole broadcloth, - To keep these three rogues warm." - - "The miller was drowned in his dam, - The weaver was hung by his yarn, - But the Devil ran away with the little tailor boy, - With the broadcloth under his arm." - -There was a joyous shout from our ranks. We understood it all now. The -Archbishop was misbehaving himself, was flaunting his misbehaviour in -Madame Bouron's face. We knew very well what would be said to us, if we -sang a song like that, without the Archiepiscopal sanction, and there -was a delicious sense of impunity in our hearts, as we vociferated the -unhallowed lines:-- - - "But the Devil ran away with the little tailor boy, - With the broadcloth under his arm." - -Then the Archbishop stepped out of the boat, and there was a timid -scramble to his side. The barriers were down. He had knocked at our -hearts in the Devil's name, and we had flung them wide. The return -to the convent was like a rout;--little girls wedging their way in -among big girls, the Second Cours contesting every step of the path -with the First Cours, the most insignificant children lifted suddenly -to prominence and distinction. I was too shy to do more than move -restlessly on the outskirts of the crowd; but I saw Tony conversing -affably with the Archbishop (and looking as gentle as she was -intelligent), and Viola Milton kissing his ring with the assurance of -an infant Aloysius. When he bade us good-by, we shouted and waved our -handkerchiefs until he was out of sight. He turned at the end of the -avenue, and waved his in a last friendly salutation. That was very long -ago. I trust that in Paradise the Holy Innocents are now bearing him -company, for I truly believe his soul would weary of the society of -grown-up saints. - -And our _congé_ was only ten days off. This thought was left to gild -our waking hours. We--Elizabeth, Marie, Tony, Lilly, Emily, and -I--resolved ourselves immediately into a committee of ways and means, -and voted all the money in the treasury for supplies. It was not much, -but, if well laid out, it would purchase sweets enough to insure a -midnight pang. The privilege of buying so much as a stick of candy was -one rigidly reserved for holidays. "Mary" did our shopping for us. Mary -was a hybrid, a sort of uncloistered nun. Her out-of-date bonnet, -worn instead of a lay sister's close white cap, proclaimed her as one -free to come and go; and her mission in life was to transact outside -business, to buy whatever was necessary or permitted. The lay sisters -did the work of the convent; Mary ministered to its needs. We wrote -down for her a list of delicacies. - -One dozen oranges. - -One box of figs. - -One pound of caramels,--which were dear. - -Two pounds of walnut taffy. - -Three pounds of cinnamon bun. - -A fair allowance, I surmise, for six well-fed little girls. - -"I tell you what I'll do," said Marie, in an excess of generosity. -"I'll save up my wine, if you'll lend me bottles to put it in." - -We felt this to be noble. For some mysterious reason (she was never -known to be ill), Marie was sent every morning at eleven o'clock to -the infirmary; and at that unconvivial hour drank a solitary glass of -wine. It was port, I believe, or Burgundy,--I am not sure which, and I -pray Heaven I may never taste its like again. Now, provided with half a -dozen empty bottles, which had erstwhile held tooth-wash and cologne, -she undertook to elude the infirmarian's eye, and to decant her wine -into these receptacles, instead of putting it where it was due. How -she managed this we never knew (it would have seemed difficult to a -prestidigitator), but Marie was a child of resources, second only to -Tony in every baleful art. - -Clever though we deemed her, however, clever though we sometimes deemed -ourselves, there was one in the school, younger, yet far more acute -than any of us. Thursday was visitors' day, and Lilly's brother came -to see her. After he had gone, Lilly joined us in the avenue, looking -perturbed and mysterious. - -"I want to tell you something," she said lamely. "Viola has got some -cigarettes. Jack gave them to her." - -Cigarettes! Dynamite could not have sounded more overwhelming. -Cigarettes, and in Viola Milton's keeping! Never had a whiff of tobacco -defiled the convent air. Never had the thought of such unbridled -license entered into any heart. And Viola was ten years old. - -"I know what that means," said Tony sharply. "She wants to come with us -on the _congé_." - -Lilly nodded. It was plain that Viola, having possessed herself of a -heavy bribe, had persuaded her older sister to open negotiations. - -"Well, we won't have her," cried Tony vehemently. "Not if she has all -the cigarettes in Christendom. Why on earth, Lilly, didn't you ask -your brother for them yourself?" - -"I never thought of such a thing," pleaded Lilly. "I never even heard -her do it." - -"Well, we won't have Viola, and you may go and tell her so," repeated -Tony with mounting wrath. "Go and tell her so right off. We won't have -a child of ten tagging round with us all day." - -"Agnes is only eleven," said Lilly. - -"How many cigarettes has she got?" It was Elizabeth who asked this -pertinent question. - -"I don't know. Jack gave her all he had." - -"It doesn't make any difference how many she has. I won't have her," -flamed Tony. - -At this assertive "I," Elizabeth lifted her head. Her light blue eyes -met Tony's sparkling brown ones. It was not the first time the two -children had measured their forces. "We'll see, anyhow, what Viola's -got," said Elizabeth calmly. - -Lilly, being despatched to make inquiries, returned in two minutes with -her little sister by her side. Viola was a bony child, all eyes and -teeth, as ugly as Lilly was beautiful. Her sombre glance was riveted -wistfully upon Elizabeth's face. She was too wise to weaken her cause -with words, but held out eleven little white objects, at which we -looked enviously. - -"Seven from eleven leaves four," murmured Emily. - -"I don't want any," said Viola, who was bidding high. She would have -bartered her immortal soul to gain her point. - -"And I don't want more than one," said Lilly. "That will leave two -apiece for the rest of you." - -"Well?" asked Elizabeth, looking round the circle. - -"Oh, do let's have them!" I urged, dazzled by a sudden vision of -debauchery. "They'll be just the thing to go with the wine." - -They were _just_ the thing. We found this out later on. - -"Oh, yes, let's have them," said Marie, who felt the responsibilities -of a hostess. - -"Let's," said Emily, our silent member. - -"I won't!" asseverated Tony, battling heroically for a lost cause. "I -won't have anything to do with the treat, if you let Viola in." - -"Then don't!" retorted Elizabeth, now sure of victory, and scornful of -further dispute. - -Tony turned her back upon her venal friends, and marched off to another -group of girls. There was no great novelty about this proceeding, but -the imminence of the _congé_ lent it an unwonted seriousness. - -"Don't you suppose she'll play _cache cache_ with us?" asked Marie -somewhat ruefully, and well aware of what we should lose if she did not. - -"Of course she will," said Elizabeth, "because she can't play without -us." - -And Elizabeth was right. Before the first of June, Tony had "come -round;" being persuaded to this condescension by Lilly the peacemaker. -Every cluster of friends should look to it that there is one absolutely -sweet-tempered person in the group. But one is enough. - -The first glorious thing about a _congé_ was that we got up at seven -instead of at quarter-past six, and the next was that we began to -talk before we were out of our beds. Breakfast was so hilarious that -only the fear of wasting our precious hours ever dragged us from the -refectory, and up into the schoolroom, to prepare for the special -feature of the day, _cache cache_. We never played _cache cache_ except -upon a holiday, which was why it seemed such a thrilling and wonderful -game. No indulgence was likely to lose its value for us through -unwarranted repetition. Two captains were chosen by acclamation, and -they in turn elected their girls, picking them out alternately, one by -one, until the whole Second Cours was divided into two bands of about -twenty each. One band remained shut up in a music room (which was goal) -for half an hour, while the other betook itself to the most secret -and inaccessible spot that could be thought of as a hiding place. The -captain might stay with her band, and direct its action, or she might -be hidden separately; but no one except the captain was permitted to -stray from the ranks for purposes of reconnoitring. The same rule held -good for the searching party. The captain alone might play the scout. -The rest were obliged to hold together. The capture of the hidden -captain counted as half the game. The capture of the hidden band, -before it could reach its goal, counted as the other half of the game. -Thus the hiders were forced either to dispense with the invaluable -services of their leader, or to risk the loss of the whole game, if she -were surprised in their company. So much, indeed, depended upon the -leader's tactics, and so keen was our thirst for victory, that the girl -who saved the day for herself and for her comrades was held in higher -esteem than the girl who came out ahead in the periodical blistering of -examinations. College valuations are, perhaps, not so absolutely modern -as they seem. - -Given an area of over a hundred acres, with woods and orchards, with a -deep ravine choked with tangled underbrush for concealment, and with -wide lawns for an open run,--and _cache cache_ becomes, or at least it -became for us, a glorious and satisfying sport. To crouch breathless -in the "poisonous valley" (there was a touch of poetry in all our -nomenclature), to skirt cautiously the marshy ground of La Salette -(named after the miraculous spring of Dauphiné), to crawl on one's -stomach behind half a mile of inadequate hedge, to make a wild dash for -goal within full view of the pursuing party,--these things supplied all -the trepidation and fatigue, all the opportunities for generalship, and -all the openings for dispute, that reasonable children could demand. -We hardly needed the additional excitement provided by Eloise Didier's -slipping into the marsh, and being fished out, a compact cake of mud; -or by Tony's impiously hiding in the organ loft of the chapel, and -being caught red-handed by Madame Duncan,--a nun whom, thank Heaven! -it was possible, though difficult, to cajole. - -We played all morning and all afternoon, played until our strength and -our spirits were alike exhausted; and then, when the shadows began -to lengthen, and our vivacity to wane, we made ready for the mad -carousal which was to close our day. A basement music room, as remote -as possible from any chance of inspection, was chosen as the scene -of revelry. It was not a cheerful spot; but it appeared reasonably -safe. Hither we transported our feast, which, spread out upon a piano, -presented a formidable appearance, and restored us to gayety and good -humour. The advantage of childhood over riper years is its blessed -slowness to recognize a failure. If a thing starts out to be a treat, -why, it _is_ a treat, and that's the end of it. The cinnamon bun was -certainly stale (Mary had, it was plain, consulted her own convenience -as to the day of its purchase), but Heaven forbid that we should balk -at staleness. Oranges and caramels, figs and walnut taffy present, to -the thinking mind, an inharmonious combination; but that was a point on -which we were to be subsequently enlightened. As for Marie's wine, it -can be readily imagined what _it_ was like, after lying around for a -warm May week in imperfectly corked tooth-wash bottles. I can only say -that no medicine it had been my lot to taste was ever half so nasty; -yet those were days when all drugs were of uncompromising bitterness. -An effete civilization had not then devised gelatine capsules to -defraud the palate of its pain. - -We ate everything, cake, fruit, and candy; we drank the wine -(heroic young souls!), and, trembling with excitement, we lit the -cigarettes,--a more difficult matter than we had imagined. I had not -waited until this point to dree my weird. Excessive fatigue is but an -indifferent preparation for unwonted indulgence; and I was a sickly -child, to whom only the simplicity and regularity of school life lent -a semblance of health. Ominous sensations were warning me of my deadly -peril; but I held straight on. Suddenly Marie, who had been smoking -with silent fortitude, said sweetly: - -"It's a shame Viola shouldn't have one of her own cigarettes. I'll give -her my second." - -"She can have one of mine, too," said Emily. - -"Thank you," returned Viola hastily. "I don't want any. I gave them to -you." - -"Oh, do try one!" urged Marie. - -"Yes, do!" said Tony sardonically. "Do try one, Viola. They are anxious -enough to get rid of them." - -She flung this taunt at the crowd, but her eye met mine with a -challenge I would not evade. "I want my second one," I said. - -Valour met valour. "So do I," smiled Tony. - -From this point, my recollections are vague. We talked about Madame -Davide, and whether she really did not understand English, or only -pretended not to,--a point which had never been satisfactorily -settled. We talked about Madame Bouron, and her methods (which we -deemed unworthy) of finding out all she knew. I added little to the -sprightliness of the conversation, and after a while I slipped away. On -the stairs a kindly fate threw me into the arms of Sister O'Neil, who -had charge of the vestry, and who was carrying piles of clean linen to -the dormitories. She was a friendly soul (nearly all the lay sisters -were good to us), and she took possession of me then and there. When -I was safe in bed,--collapsed but comforted,--she sprinkled me with -holy water, and tucked the light covers carefully around me. "Lie quiet -now," she said. "I'll go tell Madame Rayburn where you are, and that -there was no time to ask leave of anybody." - -I did lie very quiet, and, after a while, fell into a doze, from which -the sound of footsteps woke me. Some one was standing at the foot of my -bed. It was Tony. She looked a trifle more sallow than usual, but was -grinning cheerfully. "I'm better now," she said. - -The delicate emphasis on the _now_ was like a condensed epic. "So am -I," I murmured confidentially. - -Tony disappeared, and in a few minutes was back again, comfortably -attired in a dressing gown and slippers. She perched herself on the -foot of my bed. "Hasn't it been a perfect _congé_?" she sighed -happily. (Oh, blessed memory of youth!) "If you'd seen Madame Duncan, -though, when I came stealing out of the chapel,--without a veil, too. -'What does this mean, Tony?' she said. 'It isn't possible that'"-- - -There was an abrupt pause. "Well?" I asked expectantly, though I had -heard it all several times already; but Tony's eyes were fixed on the -little pile of clean linen lying on my chair. - -"Oh! I say," she cried, and there was a joyous ring in her voice. -"Here's our chance. Let's change all the girls' washes." - -I gazed at her with heartfelt admiration. To have passed recently -through so severe a crisis,--a crisis which had reduced me to -nothingness; and yet to be able instantly to think of such a charming -thing to do. Not for the first time, I felt proud of Tony's -friendship. Her resourcefulness compelled my homage. Had we been living -in one of Mr. James's novels, I should have called her "great" and -"wonderful." - -"Get up and help," said Tony. - -I stumbled out of bed, and into my slippers. My head felt curiously -light when I lifted it from my pillow, and I had to catch hold of my -curtain rod for support. The dormitory floor heaved up and down. Tony -was already at work, carrying the linen from one side of the room to -the other, and I staggered weakly after her. There were thirty beds, -so it took us some time to accomplish our mission; but "The labour we -delight in physicks pain;" and it was with a happy heart, and a sense -of exalted satisfaction, that I saw the last pile safe in the wrong -alcove, and crawled back between my sheets.--"Something attempted, -something done, to earn a night's repose." Tony sat on my bed, and we -talked confidentially until we heard the girls coming upstairs. Then -she fled, and I awaited developments. - -They entered more noisily than was their wont. The law ruled that a -_congé_ came to an end with night prayers, after which no word might be -spoken; but it was hard to control children who had been demoralized -by a long day of liberty. Moreover, the "Seven Dolours" dormitory was -ever the most turbulent of the three; its inmates lacking the docility -of the very little girls, and the equanimity of the big ones. They were -all at what is called the troublesome age. There was a note of anxiety -in Madame Chapelle's voice, as she hushed down some incipient commotion. - -"I must have perfect silence in the dormitory," she said. "You have -talked all day; now you must go quietly to bed. Do you hear me, -children? Silence!" - -There was a lull, and then--I knew it must soon come--a voice from the -far end of the room. "I have thirty-seven's clothes" (everything was -marked with our school numbers), "instead of mine." - -"Mary Aylmer, be quiet!" commanded Madame Chapelle. - -"But, Madame, I tell you truly, I have thirty-seven's clothes. Who is -thirty-seven?" - -"I am," cried another voice,--Eloise Didier's. "But I haven't -got your clothes, Mary Aylmer. I've got Alice Campbell's. Here, -Alice,--twenty-two,--come take your things." - -"Who is thirty-three? Ruffled night-gown with two buttons off. Oh, -shame!" sang out Marie jubilantly. - -"Children, will you be silent!" said Madame Chapelle, angry and -bewildered. "What do you mean by such behaviour?" - -"Forty-two's stockings want darning," said a reproachful voice. It was -very probable, for I was forty-two. - -"So do thirty-eight's." - -"Adelaide H. McC. Harrison," Elizabeth read slowly, and with -painstaking precision. "Haven't you any more initials, Adelaide, you -could have put on your underclothes?" - -"Look again, Elizabeth. Surely there's a coronet somewhere?" interposed -Eloise Didier sardonically. Adelaide was not popular in our community. - -"Three coronets, a sceptre, and a globe," said Elizabeth. - -"Children," began Madame Chapelle; but her voice was lost in the -scurrying of feet, as girl after girl darted across the polished floor -to claim her possessions, or to rid herself of some one else's. They -were, I well knew, devoutly grateful for this benign confusion, and -were making the most of it. Fate did not often throw such chances in -their way. For a moment I felt that noble joy which in this world -is granted only to successful effort, to the accomplishment of some -well-planned, well-executed design. Then silence fell suddenly upon the -room, and I knew, though I could not see, that every girl was back in -her own alcove. - -"May I ask the meaning of this disorder!" said Madame Rayburn coldly. - -She was _surveillante_, and was making the round of the dormitories, -to see that everything was quiet after the day's excitement. Madame -Chapelle began a nervous explanation. There was some mistake about -the laundry. None of the children had their own clothes. They were -trying--rather noisily, she admitted--to exchange them. Was it -possible that Sister O'Neil-- - -"Sister O'Neil!" interrupted Madame Rayburn impatiently. "Sister O'Neil -had nothing to do with it. Answer me quietly, children. Did you all -find you had some one else's clothes?" - -There was a murmur of assent,--a polite, subdued, apologetic sort -of murmur; but, none the less, of universal assent. At that instant -I remembered Sister O'Neil's parting words to me, and, with the -instinctive impulse of the ostrich, slid deeper in my little bed. A -quick step crossed the dormitory. A firm hand drew my curtain. "Agnes!" -said Madame Rayburn, in a terrible voice. - -Ah, well! Anyway, the _congé_ was over. - - - - -Marriage Vows - - -We had decided upon the married estate, titles, and foreign travel. -I do not mean that we cherished such ambitions for the future,--what -was the future to us?--but that in the world of illusions, which was -our world, we were about to assume these new and dazzling conditions. -Childish even for our years, though our years were very few, and -preserved mercifully from that familiar and deadening intercourse -with adults, which might have resulted in our being sensible and well -informed, we cultivated our imaginations instead of our minds. The -very bareness of our surroundings, the absence of all appliances for -play, flung us back unreservedly upon the illimitable resources of -invention. It was in the long winter months, when nature was unkind, -when the last chestnut had been gathered, and the last red leaf pressed -carefully in an atlas, that we awoke to the recognition of our needs, -and slipped across the border-land of fancy. It was then that certain -wise and experienced nuns watched us closely, knowing that our pent-up -energies might at any moment break down the barriers of discipline; -but knowing also that it was not possible for a grown-up person, -however well disposed, to enter our guarded realm. We were always under -observation, but the secret city wherein we dwelt was trodden by no -other foot than ours. - -It had rained for a week. We had exhausted the resources of literature -and the drama. A new book in the convent library, a book with a most -promising title, "The Witch of Melton Hill," had turned out to be -a dismal failure. Elizabeth observed sardonically that if it had -been named, as it should have been, "The Guardian Angel of Hallam -House," we should at least have let it alone. An unreasoning relative -had sent me as a belated Christmas gift, "Agnes Hilton; or Pride -Corrected,"--making the feeble excuse that I bore the heroine's name. -To a logical mind this would have seemed no ground either for giving me -the story, or for blaming me because it proved unreadable. But Tony, -to whom I lent it, reproached me with exceeding bitterness for having -the kind of a name--a goody-goody name she called it--which was always -borne by pious and virtuous heroines. She said she thanked Heaven none -of them were ever christened Antoinette; and she seemed to hold me -responsible for the ennobling qualities she despised. - -As for the drama, we had acted for the second time Elizabeth's -masterpiece, "The Youth of Michael Angelo," and there appeared to be no -further opening for our talents. We little girls, with the imitative -instincts of our age, were always endeavouring to reproduce on a modest -scale the artistic triumphs with which the big girls entertained the -school. It was hard work, because we had no plays, no costumes, and no -manager. We had only Elizabeth, who rose to the urgent needs of the -situation, overcoming for our sake the aversion she felt for any form -of composition, and substituting for her French exercises the more -inspiring labours of the dramatist. Her first attempt was slight, a -mere curtain raiser, and dealt with the fortunes of a robber chief, -who, after passionate pursuit of a beautiful and beloved maiden, finds -out that she is his sister, and hails the news with calm fraternal joy. -By a fortunate coincidence, he also discovers that an aged traveller -whom he had purposed robbing is his father; so the curtain falls upon -a united family, the gentle desperado quoting an admirable sentiment -of Cowper's (it was in our reader, accompanied by a picture of a -gentleman, a lady, a baby, and a bird-cage):-- - - "Domestic happiness, thou only bliss - Of Paradise that has survived the fall." - -The success of this touching and realistic little play encouraged -Elizabeth to more ambitious efforts. She set about dramatizing, with my -assistance, a story from "The Boyhood of Great Painters," which told -how the youthful Michael Angelo modelled a snow Faun in the gardens of -Lorenzo de Medici, and how that magnificent duke, seeing this work of -art before it had time to melt, showered praises and promises upon the -happy sculptor. It was not a powerful theme, but there was an ancient -retainer of the Buonarroti family (Elizabeth wisely reserved this part -for herself), who made sarcastic remarks about his employers, and -never appeared without a large feather duster, thus fulfilling all the -legitimate requirements of modern comedy. What puzzled us most sorely -was the Faun, which we supposed to be an innocent young quadruped, -and had no possible way of presenting. Therefore, after a great deal -of consideration, it was determined that a flower girl should be -substituted; this happy idea (so suggestive of Michael Angelo's genius) -being inspired by the plaster figures then sadly familiar to lawns and -garden walks. In the story, the young artist emphasized the age of the -Faun by deftly knocking out two of its front teeth,--a touch of realism -beyond our range, as Viola Milton in a night-gown played the statue's -part. In our drama, the Duke complained that the flower girl was too -grave, whereupon Michael Angelo, with a few happy touches, gave her a -smile so broad--Viola's teeth being her most prominent feature--that -some foolish little girls in the audience thought a joke was intended, -and laughed uproariously. - -Marie played Michael Angelo. I was his proud father, who appeared only -in the last scene, and said, "Come to my arms, my beloved son!" which -he did so impetuously--Marie was nothing if not ardent--that I was -greatly embarrassed, and did not know how to hold him. Lorenzo the -Magnificent was affably, though somewhat feebly, portrayed by Annie -Churchill, who wore a waterproof cloak, flung, like Hamlet's mantle, -over her left shoulder, and a beaver hat with a red bow and an ostrich -plume, the property of Eloise Didier. It was a significant circumstance -that when Marie, rushing to my embrace, knocked over a little table, -the sole furniture of the Medicean palace, and indicating by its -presence that we were no longer in the snow, Lorenzo hastily picked it -up, and straightened the cover; while Elizabeth--who had no business -to be in that scene--stood calmly by, twirling her feather duster, -and apparently accustomed to being waited on by the flower of the -Florentine nobility. - -The production of "Michael Angelo" cost us four weeks of hard and happy -labour. His name became so familiar to our lips that Tony, whose turn -it was to read night and morning prayers, substituted it profanely for -that of the blessed Archangel. We always said the Credo and Confiteor -in Latin, so that _beato Michaeli Archangelo_ became _beato Michael -Angelo_, without attracting the attention of any ears save ours. It -was one of those daring jests (as close to wickedness as we ever got) -which served as passwords in our secret city. The second time we gave -the play, we extended a general invitation to the First Cours to come -and see it; and a score or so of the less supercilious girls actually -availed themselves of the privilege. It is hard for me to make clear -what condescension this implied. Feudal lord and feudal vassal were not -more widely separated than were the First and Second Cours. Feudal lord -and feudal vassal were not more firmly convinced of the justness of -their respective positions. No uneasy agitator had ever pricked us into -discontent. The existing order of things seemed to us as natural as the -planetary system. - -Now, casting about for some new form of diversion, Elizabeth proposed -one stormy afternoon that we should assume titles, and marry one -another; secretly, of course, but with all the pomp and circumstance -that imagination could devise. She herself, having first choice, -elected England for her dwelling-place, and Emily for her spouse. She -took Emily, I am sure, because that silent and impassive child was -the only one of the five who didn't particularly covet the honour. -Elizabeth, protecting herself instinctively from our affection and -admiration, found her natural refuge in this unresponsive bosom. -Because Emily would just as soon have married Lilly or me, Elizabeth -wisely offered her her hand. She also insisted that Emily, being older, -should be husband. Mere surface ambition was alien to her character. -The position of _maîtresse femme_ satisfied all reasonable requirements. - -Names and titles were more difficult of selection. Emily was well -disposed toward a dukedom; but Elizabeth preferred that her husband -should be an earl, because an earl was "belted," and a duke, we -surmised, wasn't. - -"A duke is higher than an earl," said the well-informed Emily. - -"But he isn't belted," insisted Elizabeth. "It's a 'belted knight' and -a 'belted earl' always; never a belted duke. You can wear a belt if -you're an earl, Emily." - -"I do wear a belt," said the prosaic Emily. - -"Then, of course, you've got to be an earl," retorted Elizabeth; -reasoning by some process, not perfectly plain to us, but conclusive -enough for Emily, who tepidly yielded the point. "Philip Howard, Earl -of Arundel"-- - -"I won't be named Philip," interrupted Emily rebelliously. - -"Well, then, Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, and we'll live -in Arundel Castle." - -"You got that out of 'Constance Sherwood,'" said Marie. - -Elizabeth nodded. Lady Fullerton's pretty story had been read aloud -in the refectory, and we were rather "up" in English titles as a -consequence. - -"I'm going to be Prince of Castile," said Tony suddenly. - -I leaped from my chair. "You shan't!" I flashed, and then stopped -short, bitterly conscious of my impotence. Tony had "spoken first." -There was no wresting her honours from her. She knew, she must have -known that Castile was the home of my soul, though no one had ever -sounded the depth of my devotion. My whole life was lit by Spain's -sombre glow. It was the land where my fancy strayed whenever it escaped -from thraldom, and to which I paid a secret and passionate homage. -The destruction of the Invincible Armada was the permanent sorrow of -my childhood. And now Tony had located herself in this paradise of -romance. "Castile's proud dames" would be her peers and countrywomen. -The Alhambra would be her pleasure-house (geographically I was a trifle -indistinct), and Moorish slaves would wait upon her will. I could not -even share these blessed privileges, because it was plain to all of us -that Tony's one chance of connubial felicity lay in having Lilly for a -partner. The divorce courts would have presented a speedy termination -to any other alliance. - -"Never mind, Agnes," said Marie consolingly. "We don't want Castile. -It's a soapy old place. We'll be Duke and Duchess of Tuscany." - -I yielded a sorrowful assent. Tuscany awoke no echoes in my bosom. I -neither knew nor cared whence Marie had borrowed the suggestion. But -the priceless discipline of communal life had taught us all to respect -one another's rights, and to obey the inflexible rules of play. Tony -had staked her claim to Castile; and I became Beatrice della Rovere, -Duchess of Tuscany, without protest, but without elation. Lilly looked -genuinely distressed. Her sweet heart was hurt to feel that she was -depriving a friend of any happiness, and it is safe to say that she was -equally indifferent to the grandeurs of Italy and of Spain. Perhaps -Griselda the patient felt no lively concern as to the whereabouts of -her husband's estates. She had other and more serious things to ponder. - -The marriage ceremony presented difficulties. We must have a priest -to officiate; that is, we must have a girl discreet enough to be -trusted with our secret, yet stupid enough, or amiable enough, to be -put out of the play afterwards. We had no idea of being burdened with -clerical society. Annie Churchill was finally chosen for the rôle. Her -functions were carefully explained to her, and her scruples--she was -dreadfully afraid of doing something wrong--were, by candid argument, -overcome. Marie wanted to be married in the "Lily of Judah" chapel, a -tiny edifice girt by the winding drive; but Elizabeth firmly upheld the -superior claims of St. Joseph. - -St. Joseph was, as we well knew, the patron of marriage, its advocate -and friend. We depended upon him to find us our future husbands,--in -which regard he has shown undue partiality,--and it was in good -faith that we now placed ourselves under his protection. Our play -inevitably reflected the religious influences by which we were so -closely environed. I hear it said that the little sons of ministers -preach to imaginary audiences in the nursery,--an idea which conveys -a peculiar horror to my mind. We did not preach (which of us would -have listened?), but we followed in fancy, like the child, Eugénie -de Guérin, those deeply coloured traditions which lent atmosphere to -our simple and monotonous lives. One of our favourite games was the -temptation of St. Anthony. Mariana Grognon, a little French girl of -unsurpassed agility, had "created" the part of the devil. Its special -feature was the flying leap she took over the kneeling hermit's head, -a performance more startling than seductive. This vivacious pantomime -had been frowned upon by the mistress of recreation, who had no idea -what it meant, but who considered, and with reason, that Mariana was -behaving like a tomboy. Then one day an over-zealous St. Anthony--Marie -probably--crossed himself with such suspicious fervour when the devil -made his jump that the histrionic nature of the sport became evident, -and it was sternly suppressed. The primitive humour of the miracle play -was not in favour at the convent. - -We were married in front of St. Joseph's statue, outside the chapel -door, on Sunday afternoon. Sunday was selected for the ceremony, partly -because we had possession of our white veils on that day,--and what -bride would wear a black veil!--and partly because the greater liberty -allowed us made possible an unobserved half-hour. It was Elizabeth's -custom and mine to go to the chapel every Sunday before supper, and -offer an earnest supplication to the Blessed Virgin that we might not -be given medals that night at Primes. I loved Primes. It was the most -exciting event of the week. There was an impressive solemnity about -the big, hushed room, the long rows of expectant girls, Reverend -Mother, begirt by the whole community, gazing at us austerely, and -the seven days' record read out in Madame Bouron's clear, incisive -tones. We knew how every girl in the school, even the exalted graduates -and semi-sacred medallions, had behaved. We knew how they stood in -class. We saw the successful students go up to receive their medals. -Occasional comments from Madame Bouron added a bitter pungency to the -situation. It was delightful from beginning to end, unless--and this -happened very often to Elizabeth, and sometimes even to me--we had -distinguished ourselves sufficiently to win our class medals for the -week. _Then_, over an endless expanse of polished floor, slippery as -glass, we moved like stricken creatures; conscious that our friends -were watching us in mocking security from their chairs; conscious that -we were swinging our arms and turning in our toes; and painfully -aware that our curtsies would never come up to the required standard -of elegance and grace. Elizabeth was furthermore afflicted by a dark -foreboding that something--something in the nature of a stocking or -a petticoat--would "come down" when she was in mid-stream, and this -apprehension deepened her impenetrable gloom. It was in the hopes -of averting such misery that we said our "Hail Marys" every Sunday -afternoon, manifesting thereby much faith but little intelligence, as -all these matters had been settled at "Conference" on Saturday. - -I have always believed, however, that it was in answer to our prayers -that a law was passed in mid-term, ordaining that no girl should be -eligible for a class medal unless she had _all_ her conduct notes, -unless her week's record was without a stain. As this was sheerly -impossible, we were thenceforth safe. We heard our names read out, and -sat still, in disgraceful but blessed security. Even Madame Bouron's -icy censure, and Reverend Mother's vaguely reproachful glance (she -was hopelessly near-sighted, and hadn't the remotest idea where we -sat) were easier to bear than that distressful journey up and down the -classroom, with every eye upon us. - -The marriage ceremony would have been more tranquil and more imposing -if we had not had such a poltroon of a priest. Annie was so nervous, so -afraid she was committing a sin, and so afraid she would be caught in -the commission, that she read the service shamefully, and slurred all -the interesting details over which we wanted to linger. Elizabeth had -to prompt her repeatedly, and Tony's comments were indefensible at such -a solemn hour. When the three rings had been placed upon the brides' -fingers, and the three veils bashfully raised to permit the salutations -of the noble grooms, we promised to meet again in the boot and shoe -closet, after the dormitory lights had been lowered, and hurried back -to the schoolroom. To have played our parts openly in recreation hours -would have been to destroy all the pleasures of illusion. Secrecy was -indispensable, secrecy and mystery; a hurried clasp of Marie's hand, as -she brushed by me to her desk; a languishing glance over our dictation -books in class; a tender note slipped between the pages of my grammar. -I have reason to believe I was the most cherished of the three brides. -Tony was not likely to expend much energy in prolonged love-making, -and Emily was wholly incapable of demonstration, even if Elizabeth -would have tolerated it. But Marie was dramatic to her finger-tips; -she played her part with infinite grace and zeal; and I, being by -nature both ardent and imitative, entered freely into her conception of -our rôles. We corresponded at length, with that freedom of phrase and -singleness of idea which make love letters such profitable reading. - -It was in our stolen meetings, however, in those happy reunions in -the boot and shoe closet, or in another stuffy hole where our hats -and coats were hung, that the expansive nature of our play was made -delightfully manifest. It was then that we travelled far and wide, -meeting dangers with an unflinching front, and receiving everywhere -the respectful welcome due to our rank and fortunes. We went to Rome, -and the Holy Father greeted us with unfeigned joy. We went to Venice, -and the Doge--of whose passing we were blissfully ignorant--took us -a-pleasuring in the Bucentaur. Our Stuart proclivities would not -permit us to visit Victoria's court,--that is, not as friends. Tony -thirsted to go there and raise a row; but the young Pretender being -dead (we ascertained this fact definitely from Madame Duncan, who read -us a lecture on our ignorance), there seemed nobody to put in the place -of the usurping queen. We crossed the desert on camels, and followed -Père Huc into Tartary and Thibet. Our husbands gave us magnificent -jewels, and Lilly dropped her pearl earrings into a well, like -"Albuharez' Daughter" in the "Spanish Ballads." This charming mishap -might have happened to me, if only I had been Princess of Castile. - -Then one day Elizabeth made a discovery which filled me with confusion. -Before I came to school, I had parted with my few toys, feeling that -paper dolls and grace-hoops were unworthy of my new estate, and that -I should never again condescend to the devices of my lonely childhood. -The single exception was a small bisque doll with painted yellow curls. -I had brought it to the convent in a moment of weakness, but no one -was aware of its existence. It was a neglected doll, nameless and -wardrobeless, and its sole function was to sleep with me at night. Its -days were spent in solitary confinement in my washstand drawer. This -does not mean that evening brought any sense of exile to my heart. -On the contrary, the night fears which at home made going to bed an -ever repeated misery (I slept alone on a big, echoing third floor, and -everybody said what a brave little girl I was) had been banished by the -security of the dormitory, by the blessed sense of companionship and -protection. Nevertheless, I liked to feel my doll in bed with me, and I -might have enjoyed its secret and innocent society all winter, had I -not foolishly carried it downstairs one day in my pocket, and stowed it -in a corner of my desk. The immediate consequence was detection. - -"How did you come to have it?" asked Elizabeth, wondering. - -"Oh, it got put in somehow with my things," I answered evasively, and -feeling very much ashamed. - -Elizabeth took the poor little toy, and looked at it curiously. She -must have possessed such things once, but it was as hard to picture her -with a doll as with a rattle. She seemed equally remote from both. As -she turned it over, an inspiration came to her. "I tell you what we'll -do," she said; "we'll take it for your baby,--it's time one of us had -a child,--and we'll get up a grand christening. Do you want a son or a -daughter?" - -"I hope we won't have Annie Churchill for a priest," was my irrelevant -answer. - -"No, we won't," said Elizabeth. "I'll be the priest, and Tony and -Lilly can be godparents. And then, after its christening, the baby can -die,--in its baptismal innocence, you know,--and we'll bury it." - -I was silent. Elizabeth raised her candid eyes to mine. "You don't want -it, do you?" she asked. - -"I don't want it," I answered slowly. - -Marie decided that, as our first-born was to die, it had better -be a girl. A son and heir should live to inherit the estates. She -contributed a handkerchief for a christening robe; and Emily, who was -generous to a fault, insisted on giving a little new work-basket, -beautifully lined with blue satin, for a coffin. Lilly found a piece of -white ribbon for a sash. Tony gave advice, and Elizabeth her priestly -benediction. Beata Benedicta della Rovere ("That name shows she's -booked for Heaven," said Tony) was christened in the _bénitier_ at the -chapel door; Elizabeth performing the ceremony, and Tony and Lilly -unctuously renouncing in her behalf the works and pomps of Satan. It -was a more seemly service than our wedding had been, but it was only a -prelude, after all, to the imposing rites of burial. These were to take -place at the recreation hour the following afternoon; but owing to the -noble infant's noble kinsmen not having any recreation hour when the -afternoon came, the obsequies were unavoidably postponed. - -It happened in this wise. Every day, in addition to our French classes, -we had half an hour of French conversation, at which none of us ever -willingly conversed. All efforts to make us sprightly and loquacious -failed signally. When questions were put to us, we answered them; -but we never embarked of our own volition upon treacherous currents -of speech. Therefore Madame Davide levied upon us a conversational -tax, which, like some of the most oppressive taxes the world has ever -known, made a specious pretence of being a voluntary contribution. -Every girl in the class was called upon to recount some anecdote, some -incident or story which she had heard, or read, or imagined, and which -she was supposed to be politely eager to communicate to her comrades. -We always began "Madame et mesdemoiselles, figurez-vous," or "il y -avait une fois," and then launched ourselves feebly upon tales, the -hopeless inanity of which harmonized with the spiritless fashion of the -telling. We all felt this to be a degrading performance. Our tender -pride was hurt by such a betrayal, before our friends, of our potential -imbecility. Moreover, the strain upon invention and memory was growing -daily more severe. We really had nothing left to tell. Therefore five -of us (Marie belonged to a higher class) resolved to indicate that our -resources were at an end by telling the same story over and over again. -We selected for this purpose an Ollendorfian anecdote about a soldier -in the army of Frederick the Great, who, having a watch chain but no -watch, attached a bullet--I can't conceive how--to the chain; and, when -Frederick asked him the hour of the day, replied fatuously: "My watch -tells me that any hour is the time to die for your majesty." - -The combined improbability and stupidity of this tale commended it for -translation, and the uncertainty as to the order of the telling lent an -element of piquancy to the plot. Happily for Lilly, she was called upon -first to "réciter un conte," and, blushing and hesitating, she obeyed. -Madame Davide listened with a pretence of interest that did her credit, -and said that the soldier had "beaucoup d'esprit;" at which Tony, who -had pronounced him a fool, whistled a soft note of incredulity. After -several other girls had enlivened the class with mournful pleasantries, -my turn came, and I told the story as fast as I could,--so fast that -its character was not distinctly recognized until the last word was -said. Madame Davide looked puzzled, but let it pass. Perhaps she -thought the resemblance accidental. But when Emily with imperturbable -gravity began: "Il y avait une fois un soldat, honnête et brave, dans -l'armée de Frédéric le Grand," and proceeded with the familiar details, -she was sharply checked. "Faut pas répéter les mêmes contes," said -Madame Davide; at which Emily, virtuous and pained, explained that it -was _her_ conte. How could she help it if other girls chose it too? -By this time the whole class had awakened to the situation, and was -manifesting the liveliest interest and pleasure. It was almost pitiful -to see children so grateful for a little mild diversion. Like the -gratitude of Italian beggars for a few sous, it indicated painfully -the desperate nature of their needs. There was a breathless gasp of -expectancy when Elizabeth's name was called. We knew we could trust -Elizabeth. She was constitutionally incapable of a blunder. Every trace -of expression was banished from her face, and in clear, earnest tones -she said: "Madame et mesdemoiselles,--il y avait une fois un soldat, -honnête et brave, dans l'armée de Frédéric le Grand,"--whereupon -there arose a shout of such uncontrollable delight that the class was -dismissed, and we were all sent to our desks. Tony alone was deeply -chagrined. Through no fault of hers, she was for once out of a scrape, -and she bitterly resented the exclusion. It was in consequence of -this episode that Beata Benedicta's funeral rites were postponed for -twenty-four hours. - -The delay brought no consolation to my heart. It only prolonged my -unhappiness. I did not love my doll after the honest fashion of a -younger child. I did not really fear that I should miss her. But, what -was infinitely worse, I could not bring myself to believe that Beata -Benedicta was dead,--although I was going to allow her to be buried. -The line of demarcation between things that can feel and things that -cannot had always been a wavering line for me. Perhaps Hans Andersen's -stories, in which rush-lights and darning needles have as much life -as boys and girls, were responsible for my mental confusion. Perhaps -I merely held on longer than most children to a universal instinct -which they share with savages. Any familiar object, anything that I -habitually handled, possessed some portion of my own vitality. It -was never wholly inanimate. Beata's little bisque body, with its -outstretched arms, seemed to protest mutely but piteously against -abandonment. She had lain by my side for months, and now I was going -to let her be buried alive, because I was ashamed to rescue her. There -was no help for it. Rather than confess I was such a baby, I would have -been buried myself. - -A light fall of snow covered the frozen earth when we dug Beata's grave -with our penknives, and laid her mournfully away. The site selected -was back of the "Seven Dolours" chapel (chapels are to convent grounds -what arbours and summer-houses are to the profane), and we chose it -because the friendly walls hid us from observation. We had brought -out our black veils, and we put them on over our hats, in token of our -heavy grief. Elizabeth read the burial service,--or as much of it as -she deemed prudent, for we dared not linger too long,--and afterwards -reassured us on the subject of Beata's baptismal innocence. That was -the great point. She had died in her sinless infancy. We crime-laden -souls should envy her happier fate. We put a little cross of twigs -at the head of the grave, and promised to plant something there when -the spring came. Then we took off our veils, and stuffed them in our -pockets,--those deep, capacious pockets of many years ago. - -"Let's race to the avenue gate," said Tony. "I'm frozen stiff. Burying -is cold work." - -"Or we might get one of the swings," said Lilly. - -But Marie--whose real name, I forgot to say, was Francesco--put her arm -tenderly around me. "Don't grieve, Beatrice," she said. "Our little -Beata has died in her baptismal"-- - -"Oh, come away!" I cried, unable to bear the repetition of this phrase. -And I ran as fast as I could down the avenue. But I could not run fast -enough to escape from the voice of Beata Benedicta, calling--calling to -me from her grave. - - - - -Reverend Mother's Feast - - -"Mother's feast"--in other words the saint's day of the -Superioress--was dawning upon our horizon, and its lights and shadows -flecked our checkered paths. Theoretically, it was an occasion of pure -joy, assuring us, as it did, a _congé_, and not a _congé_ only, but the -additional delights of a candy fair in the morning, and an operetta, -"The Miracle of the Roses," at night. Such a round of pleasures filled -us with the happiest anticipations; but--on the same principle that the -Church always prefaces her feast days with vigils and with fasts--the -convent prefaced our _congé_ with a competition in geography, and with -the collection of a "spiritual bouquet," which was to be our offering -to Reverend Mother on her fête. - -A competition in anything was an unqualified calamity. It meant hours -of additional study, a frantic memorizing of facts, fit only to be -forgotten, and the bewildering ordeal of being interrogated before the -whole school. It meant for _me_ two little legs that shook like reeds, -a heart that thumped like a hammer in my side, a sensation of sickening -terror when the examiner--Madame Bouron--bore down upon me, and a mind -reduced to sudden blankness, washed clean of any knowledge upon any -subject, when the simplest question was asked. Tried by this process, -I was only one degree removed from idiocy. Even Elizabeth, whose legs -were as adamant, whose heart-beats had the regularity of a pendulum, -and who, if she knew a thing, could say it, hated to bound states and -locate capitals for all the school to hear. "There are to be prizes, -too," she said mournfully. "Madame Duncan said so. I don't like going -up for a prize. It's worse than a medal at Primes." - -"Oh, well, maybe you won't get one," observed Tony consolingly. "You -didn't, you know, last time." - -"I did the time before last," said Elizabeth calmly. "It was 'La -Corbeille de Fleurs.'" - -There was an echo of resentment in her voice, and we all--even -Tony--admitted that she had just cause for complaint. To reward -successful scholarship with a French book was one of those -black-hearted deeds for which we invariably held Madame Bouron -responsible. She may have been blameless as the babe unborn; but it was -our habit to attribute all our wrongs to her malign influence. We knew -"La Corbeille de Fleurs." At least, we knew its shiny black cover, and -its frontispiece, representing a sylphlike young lady in a floating -veil bearing a hamper of provisions to a smiling and destitute old -gentleman. There was nothing in this picture, nor in the accompanying -lines, "Que vois-je? Mon Dieu! Un ange de Ciel, qui vient à mon -secours," which tempted us to a perusal of the story, even had we been -in the habit of voluntarily reading French. - -As for the "spiritual bouquet," we felt that our failure to contribute -to it on a generous scale was blackening our reputations forever. Every -evening the roll was called, and girl after girl gave in her list -of benefactions. Rosaries, so many. Litanies, so many. Aspirations, -so many. Deeds of kindness, so many. Temptations resisted, so many. -Trials offered up, so many. Acts, so many. A stranger, listening to -the replies, might have imagined that the whole school was ripe for -Heaven. These blossoms of virtue and piety were added every night to -the bouquet; and the sum total, neatly written out in Madame Duncan's -flowing hand, was to be presented, with an appropriate address, to -Reverend Mother on her feast, as a proof of our respectful devotion. - -It was a heavy tax. From what resources some girls drew their supplies -remained ever a mystery to us. How could Ellie Plunkett have found -the opportunity to perform four deeds of kindness, and resist seven -temptations, in a day? We never had any temptations to resist. Perhaps -when one came along, we yielded to it so quickly that it had ceased -to tempt before its true character had been ascertained. And to whom -was Ellie Plunkett so overweeningly kind? "Who wants Ellie Plunkett -to be kind to her?" was Tony's scornful query. There was Adelaide -Harrison, too, actually turning in twenty acts as one day's crop, and -smiling modestly when Madame Duncan praised her self-denial. Yet, to -our unwarped judgment, she seemed much the same as ever. We, at least, -refused to accept her estimate of her own well-spent life. - -"Making an act" was the convent phraseology for doing without -something one wanted, for stopping short on the verge of an innocent -gratification. If I gave up my place in the swing to Viola Milton, -that was an act. If I walked to the woods with Annie Churchill, when -I wanted to walk with Elizabeth, that was an act. If I ate my bread -unbuttered, or drank my tea unsweetened, that was an act. It will be -easily understood that the constant practice of acts deprived life -of everything that made it worth the living. We were so trained in -this system of renunciation that it was impossible to enjoy even the -very simple pleasures that our convent table afforded. If there were -anything we particularly liked, our nagging little consciences piped -up with their intolerable "Make an act, make an act;" and it was only -when the last mouthful was resolutely swallowed that we could feel sure -we had triumphed over asceticism. There was something maddening in the -example set us by our neighbours, by those virtuous and pious girls who -hemmed us in at study time and at our meals. When Mary Rawdon gently -waved aside the chocolate custard--which was the very best chocolate -custard it has ever been my good fortune to eat--and whispered to me -as she did so, "An act for the bouquet;" I whispered back, "Take it, -and give it to me," and held out my plate with defiant greed. Annie -Churchill told us she hadn't eaten any butter for a week; whereat Tony -called her an idiot, and Annie--usually the mildest of girls--said -that "envy at another's spiritual good" was a very great sin, and that -Tony had committed it. There is nothing so souring to the temper as -abstinence. - -What made it singularly hard to sacrifice our young lives for the -swelling of a spiritual bouquet was that Reverend Mother, who was to -profit by our piety, had so little significance in our eyes. She was as -remote from the daily routine of the school as the Grand Lama is remote -from the humble Thibetans whom he rules; and if we regarded her with a -lively awe, it was only because of her aloofness, of the reserves that -hedged her majestically round. She was an Englishwoman of good family, -and of vast bulk. There was a tradition that she had been married and -widowed before she became a nun; but this was a subject upon which we -were not encouraged to talk. It was considered both disrespectful and -indecorous. Reverend Mother's voice was slow and deep, a ponderous -voice to suit her ponderous size; and she spoke with what seemed to us -a strange and barbarous accent, pronouncing certain words in a manner -which I have since learned was common in the days of Queen Elizabeth, -and which a few ripe scholars are now endeavouring to reintroduce. -She was near-sighted to the verge of blindness, and always at Mass -used a large magnifying glass, like the one held by Leo the Tenth in -Raphael's portrait. She was not without literary tastes of an insipid -and obsolete order, the tastes of an English gentlewoman, reared in -the days when young ladies read the "Female Spectator," and warbled -"Oh, no, we never mention her." Had she not "entered religion," she -might have taken Moore and Byron to her heart,--as did one little girl -whose "Childe Harold" lay deeply hidden in a schoolroom desk,--but the -rejection of these profane poets had left her stranded upon such feeble -substitutes as Letitia Elizabeth Landon, whose mysterious death she was -occasionally heard to deplore. - -Twice on Sundays Reverend Mother crossed our orbit; in the morning, -when she instructed the whole school in Christian doctrine, and at -night, when she presided over Primes. During the week we saw her only -at Mass. We should never even have known about Letitia Elizabeth -Landon, had she not granted an occasional audience to the graduates, -and discoursed to them sleepily upon the books she had read in her -youth. Whatever may have been her qualifications for her post (she -had surpassing dignity of carriage, and was probably a woman of -intelligence and force), to us she was a mere embodiment of authority, -as destitute of personal malice as of personal charm. I detested Madame -Bouron, and loved Madame Rayburn. Elizabeth detested Madame Bouron, -and loved Madame Dane. Emily detested Madame Bouron, and loved Madame -Duncan. These were emotions, amply nourished, and easily understood. We -were capable of going to great lengths to prove either our aversion or -our love. But to give up chocolate custard for Reverend Mother was like -suffering martyrdom for a creed we did not hold. - -"It's because Reverend Mother is so fond of geography that we're going -to have the competition," said Lilly. "Madame Duncan told me so." - -"Why can't Reverend Mother, if she likes it so much, learn it for -herself?" asked Tony sharply. "I'll lend her my atlas." - -"Oh, she knows it all," said Lilly, rather scandalized. "Madame Duncan -told me it was her favourite study, and that she knew the geography of -the whole world." - -"Then I don't see why she wants to hear us say it," observed Elizabeth, -apparently under the impression that competitions, like gladiatorial -shows, were gotten up solely for the amusement of an audience. It never -occurred to her, nor indeed to any of us, to attach any educational -value to the performance. We conceived that we were butchered to make a -convent holiday. - -"And it's because Reverend Mother is so fond of music that we are going -to have an operetta instead of a play," went on Lilly, pleased to have -information to impart. - -I sighed heavily. How could anybody prefer anything to a play? I -recognized an operetta as a form of diversion, and was grateful for -it, as I should have been grateful for any entertainment, short of an -organ recital. We were none of us surfeited with pleasures. But to me -song was at best only an imperfect mode of speech; and the meaningless -repetition of a phrase, which needed to be said but once, vexed my -impatient spirit. We were already tolerably familiar with "The Miracle -of the Roses." For two weeks past the strains had floated from every -music room. We could hear, through the closed doors, Frances Fenton, -who was to be St. Elizabeth of Hungary, quavering sweetly,-- - - "Unpretending and lowly, - Like spirits pure and holy, - I love the wild rose best, - I love the wild rose best, - I love the wi-i-ild rose best." - -We could hear Ella Holrook announcing in her deep contralto,-- - - "'Tis the privilege of a Landgrave - To go where glory waits him, - Glory waits him;" - -and the chorus trilling jubilantly,-- - - "Heaven has changed the bread to roses, - Heaven has changed the bread to roses." - -Why, I wondered, did they have to say everything two and three times -over? Even when the Landgrave detects St. Elizabeth in the act of -carrying the loaves to the poor, his anger finds a vent in iteration. - - "Once again you've dared to brave my anger, - Yes, once again you've dared to brave my anger; - My power you scorn, - My power you scorn." - -To which the Saint replies gently, but tediously,-- - - "My lord they are, - My lord they are - But simple roses, - But simple ro-o-oses, - That I gathered in the garden even now." - -"Suppose that bread hadn't been changed to roses," said Elizabeth -speculatively, "I wonder what St. Elizabeth would have done." - -"Oh, she knew it had been, because she prayed it would be," said Marie, -who was something of a theologian. - -"But suppose it hadn't." - -"But it _had_, and she knew it had, because of her piety and faith," -insisted Marie. - -"I shouldn't have liked to risk it," murmured Elizabeth. - -"_I_ think her husband was a pig," said Tony. "Going off to the -Crusade, and making all that fuss about a few loaves of bread. If I'd -been St. Elizabeth"-- - -She paused, determining her course of action, and Marie ruthlessly -interposed. "If you're not a saint, you can't tell what you would do if -you were a saint. You would be different." - -There was no doubt that Tony as a saint would have to be so very -different from the Tony whom we knew, that Marie's dogmatism prevailed. -Even Elizabeth was silenced; and, in the pause that followed, Lilly -had a chance to impart her third piece of information. "It's because -Reverend Mother's name is Elizabeth," she said, "that we're going to -have an operetta about St. Elizabeth; and Bessie Treves is to make the -address." - -"Thank Heaven, there is another Elizabeth in the school, or I might -have to do it," cried our Elizabeth, who coveted no barren honours; -and--even as she spoke--the blow fell. Madame Rayburn appeared at -the schoolroom door, a folded paper in her hand. "Elizabeth," she -said, and, with a hurried glance of apprehension, the saint's unhappy -namesake withdrew. We looked at one another meaningly. "It's like -giving thanks before you're sure of dinner," chuckled Tony. - -I had no chance to hear any particulars until night, when Elizabeth -watched her opportunity, and sallied forth to brush her teeth while -I was dawdling over mine. The strictest silence prevailed in the -dormitories, and no child left her alcove except for the ceremony -of tooth-brushing, which was performed at one of two large tubs, -stationed in the middle of the floor. These tubs--blessed be their -memory!--served as centres of gossip. Friend met friend, and smothered -confidences were exchanged. Our gayest witticisms,--hastily choked by -a toothbrush,--our oldest and dearest jests were whispered brokenly -to the accompaniment of little splashes of water. It was the last -social event of our long social day, and we welcomed it as freshly -as if we had not been in close companionship since seven o'clock in -the morning. Elizabeth, scrubbing her teeth with ostentatious vigour, -found a chance to tell me, between scrubs, that Bessie Treves had been -summoned home for a week, and that she, as the only other bearer of -Reverend Mother's honoured name, had been chosen to make the address. -"It's the feast of St. Elizabeth," she whispered, "and the operetta is -about St. Elizabeth, and they want an Elizabeth to speak. I wish I had -been christened Melpomene." - -"You couldn't have been christened Melpomene," I whispered back, -keeping a watchful eye upon Madame Chapelle, who was walking up and -down the dormitory, saying her beads. "It isn't a Christian name. There -never was a St. Melpomene." - -"It's nearly three pages long," said Elizabeth, alluding to the -address, and not to the tragic Muse. "All about the duties of women, -and how they ought to stay at home and be kind to the poor, like St. -Elizabeth, and let their husbands go to the Crusades." - -"But there are no Crusades any more for their husbands to go to," I -objected. - -Elizabeth looked at me restively. She did not like this fractious -humour. "I mean let their husbands go to war," she said. - -"But if there are no wars," I began, when Madame Chapelle, who had not -been so inattentive as I supposed, intervened. "Elizabeth and Agnes, -go back to your alcoves," she said. "You have been quite long enough -brushing your teeth." - -I flirted my last drops of water over Elizabeth, and she returned the -favour with interest, having more left in her tumbler than I had. It -was our customary good-night. Sometimes, when we were wittily disposed, -we said "_Asperges me_." That was one of the traditional jests of -the convent. Generations of girls had probably said it before us. Our -language was enriched with scraps of Latin and apt quotations, borrowed -from Church services, the Penitential Psalms, and the catechism. - -For two days Elizabeth studied the address, and for two days more she -rehearsed it continuously under Madame Rayburn's tutelage. At intervals -she recited portions of it to us, and we favoured her with our candid -criticisms. Tony objected vehemently to the very first line:-- - - "A woman's path is ours to humbly tread." - -She said she didn't intend to tread it humbly at all; that Elizabeth -might be as humble as she pleased (Elizabeth promptly disclaimed any -personal sympathy with the sentiment), and that Marie and Agnes were -welcome to all the humility they could practise (Marie and Agnes -rejected their share of the virtue), but that she--Tony--was tired -of behaving like an affable worm. To this, Emily, with more courage -than courtesy, replied that a worm Tony might be, but an affable worm, -never; and Elizabeth headed off any further retort by hurrying on with -the address. - - "A woman's path is ours to humbly tread, - And yet to lofty heights our hopes are led. - We may not share the Senate's stern debate, - Nor guide with faltering hand the helm of state; - Ours is the holier right to soften party hate, - And teach the lesson, lofty and divine, - Ambition's fairest flowers are laid at Virtue's shrine." - -"Have you any idea what all that means?" asked Marie discontentedly. - -"Oh, I don't have to say what it means," returned Elizabeth, far too -sensible to try to understand anything she would not be called upon to -explain. "Reverend Mother makes that out for herself." - - "Not ours the right to guide the battle's storm, - Where strength and valour deathless deeds perform. - Not ours to bind the blood-stained laurel wreath - In mocking triumph round the brow of death. - No! 'tis our lot to save the failing breath, - 'Tis ours to heal each wound, and hush each moan, - To take from other hearts the pain into our own." - -"It seems to me," said Tony, "that we are expected to do all the work, -and have none of the fun." - -"It seems to _me_," said Marie, "that by the time we have filled -ourselves up with other people's pains, we won't care much about fun. -Did Reverend Mother, I wonder, heal wounds and hush up moans?" - -"St. Elizabeth did," explained Elizabeth. "Her husband went to the -Holy Land, and was killed, and then she became a nun. There are some -lines at the end, that I don't know yet, about Reverend Mother,-- - - 'Seeking the shelter of the cloister gate, - Like the dear Saint whose name we venerate.' - -Madame Rayburn wants me to make an act, and learn the rest of it at -recreation this afternoon. That horrid old geography takes up all my -study time." - -"I've made three acts to-day," observed Lilly complacently, "and said a -whole pair of beads this morning at Mass for the spiritual bouquet." - -"I haven't made one act," I cried aghast. "I haven't done anything at -all, and I don't know what to do." - -"You might make one now," said Elizabeth thoughtfully, "and go talk to -Adelaide Harrison." - -I glanced at Adelaide, who was sitting on the edge of her desk, -absorbed in a book. "Oh, I don't want to," I wailed. - -"If you wanted to, it wouldn't be an act," said Elizabeth. - -"But she doesn't want me to," I urged. "She is reading 'Fabiola.'" - -"Then you'll give her the chance to make an act, too," said the -relentless Elizabeth. - -Argued into a corner, I turned at bay. "I won't," I said resolutely; to -which Elizabeth replied: "Well, I wouldn't either, in your place," and -the painful subject was dropped. - -Four days before the feast the excitement had reached fever point, -though the routine of school life went on with the same smooth -precision. Every penny had been hoarded up for the candy fair. It was -with the utmost reluctance that we bought even the stamps for our -home letters, those weekly letters we were compelled to write, and -which were such pale reflections of our eager and vehement selves. -Perhaps this was because we knew that every line was read by Madame -Bouron before it left the convent; perhaps the discipline of those -days discouraged familiarity with our parents; perhaps the barrier -which nature builds between the adult and the normal child was alone -responsible for our lack of spontaneity. Certain it is that the stiffly -written pages despatched to father or to mother every Sunday night gave -no hint of our abundant and restless vitality, our zest for the little -feast of life, our exaltations, our resentments, our thrice-blessed -absurdities. Entrenched in the citadel of childhood, with laws of our -own making, and passwords of our own devising, our souls bade defiance -to the world. - -If all our hopes centred in the _congé_, the candy fair, and -the operetta,--which was to be produced on a scale of unwonted -magnificence,--our time was sternly devoted to the unpitying exactions -of geography. Every night we took our atlases to bed with us, under -the impression that sleeping on a book would help us to remember its -contents. As the atlases were big, and our pillows very small, this -device was pregnant with discomfort. On the fourth night before the -feast, something wonderful happened. It was the evening study hour, -and I was wrestling sleepily with the mountains of Asia,--hideous -excrescences with unpronounceable and unrememberable names,--when -Madame Rayburn entered the room. As we rose to our feet, we saw that -she looked very grave, and our minds took a backward leap over the -day. Had we done anything unusually bad, anything that could call down -upon us a public indictment, and was Madame Rayburn for once filling -Madame Bouron's office? We could think of nothing; but life was full of -pitfalls, and there was no sense of security in our souls. We waited -anxiously. - -"Children," said Madame Rayburn, "I have sorrowful news for you. -Reverend Mother has been summoned to France. She sails on her feast -day, and leaves for New York to-morrow." - -We stared open-mouthed and aghast. The ground seemed sinking from under -our feet, the walls crumbling about us. Reverend Mother sailing for -France! And on her feast day, too,--the feast for which so many ardent -preparations had been made. The _congé_, the competition, the address, -the operetta, the spiritual bouquet, the candy fair,--were they, too, -sailing away into the land of lost things? To have asked one of the -questions that trembled on our lips would have been an unheard-of -liberty. We listened in respectful silence, our eyes riveted on Madame -Rayburn's face. - -"You will all go to the chapel now," she said. "To-night we begin -a novena to _Mater Admirabilis_ for Reverend Mother's safe voyage. -She dreads it very much, and she is sad at leaving you. Pray for her -devoutly. Madame Dane will bring you down to the chapel." - -She turned to go. Our hearts beat violently. She knew, she could not -fail to know, the thought that was uppermost in every mind. She was -too experienced and too sympathetic to miss the significance of our -strained and wistful gaze. A shadowy smile crossed her face. "Madame -Bouron would have told you to-morrow," she said, "what I think I shall -tell you to-night. It is Reverend Mother's express desire that you -should have your _congé_ on her feast, though she will not be here to -enjoy it with you." - -A sigh of relief, a sigh which we could not help permitting to be -audible, shivered softly around the room. The day was saved; yet, as we -marched to the chapel, there was a turmoil of agitation in our hearts. -We knew that from far-away France--from a mysterious and all-powerful -person who dwelt there, and who was called Mother General--came the -mandates which governed our community. This was not the first sudden -departure we had witnessed; but Reverend Mother seemed so august, -so permanent, so immobile. Her very size protested mutely against -upheaval. Should we never again see that familiar figure sitting in -her stall, peering through her glass into a massive prayer-book, a -leviathan of prayer-books, as imposing in its way as she was, or -blinking sleepily at us as we filed by? Why, if somebody were needed -in France, had it not pleased Mother General to send for Madame Bouron? -Many a dry eye would have seen _her_ go. But then, as Lilly whispered -to me, suppose it had been Madame Rayburn. There was a tightening of -my heart-strings at the thought, a sudden suffocating pang, dimly -foreboding the grief of another year. - -The consensus of opinion, as gathered that evening in the dormitory, -was not unlike the old Jacobite epitaph on Frederick, Prince of Wales. -Every one of us was sincerely sorry that Madame Bouron had not been -summoned,-- - - "Had it been his father, - We had much rather;" - -but glad that Madame Dane, or Madame Rayburn, or Madame Duncan, or some -other favourite nun had escaped. - - "Since it's only Fred - Who was alive, and is dead, - There is no more to be said." - -The loss of our Superioress was bewildering, but not, for us, a thing -of deep concern. We should sleep as sweetly as usual that night. - -The next morning we were all gathered into the big First Cours -classroom, where Reverend Mother came to bid us good-by. It was a -solemn leave-taking. The address was no longer in order; but the -spiritual bouquet had been made up the night before, and was presented -in our name by Madame Bouron, who read out the generous sum-total of -prayers, and acts, and offered-up trials, and resisted temptations, -which constituted our feast-day gift. As Reverend Mother listened, -I saw a large tear roll slowly down her cheek, and my heart smote -me--my heart was always smiting me when it was too late--that I had -contributed so meagrely to the donation. I remembered the chocolate -custard, and thought--for one mistaken moment--that I should never -want to taste of that beloved dish again. Perhaps if I had offered it -up, Reverend Mother would cross the sea in safety. Perhaps, because I -ate it, she would have storms, and be drowned. The doubtful justice of -this arrangement was no more apparent to me than its unlikelihood. We -were accustomed to think that the wide universe was planned and run for -our reward and punishment. A rainy Sunday following the misdeeds of -Saturday was to us a logical sequence of events. - -When the bouquet had been presented, Reverend Mother said a few -words of farewell. She said them as if she were sad at heart, not -only at crossing the ocean, not only at parting from her community, -but at leaving us, as well. I suppose she loved us collectively. -She couldn't have loved us individually, knowing us only as two long -rows of uniformed, curtsying schoolgirls, whose features she was too -near-sighted to distinguish. On the other hand, if our charms and our -virtues were lost to her, so were our less engaging qualities. Perhaps, -taken collectively, we were rather lovable. Our uniforms were spotless, -our hair superlatively smooth,--no blowsy, tossing locks, as in these -days of libertinism, and our curtsies as graceful as hours of practice -could make them. We sank and rose like the crest of a wave. On the -whole, Reverend Mother had the best of us. Madame Bouron might have -been pardoned for taking a less sentimental view of the situation. - -That afternoon, while we were at French class, Reverend Mother -departed. We heard the carriage roll away, but were not permitted to -rush to the windows and look at it, which would have been a welcome -distraction from our verbs. An hour later, at recreation, Madame -Rayburn sent for Elizabeth. She was gone fifteen minutes, and came -back, tense with suppressed excitement. - -"Oh, what is it?" we cried. "The _congé_ is all right?" - -"All right," said Elizabeth. - -"And the candy fair?" asked Lilly, whose father had given her a dollar -to squander upon sweets. - -"Oh, it's all right, too. The candy is here now; and Ella Holrook and -Mary Denniston and Isabel Summers are to have charge of the tables. -Madame Dane told me that yesterday." - -Our faces lightened, and then fell. "Is it the competition?" I asked -apprehensively. - -Elizabeth looked disconcerted. It was plain she knew nothing about -the competition, and hated to avow her ignorance. We always felt so -important when we had news to tell. "Of course, after studying all that -geography, we'll have to say it sooner or later," she said. "But"--a -triumphant pause--"a new Reverend Mother is coming to-morrow." - -"_Ciel!_" murmured Marie, relapsing into agitated French; while Tony -whistled softly, and Emily and I stared at each other in silence. The -speed with which things were happening took our breath away. - -"Coming to-morrow," repeated Elizabeth; "and I'm going to say the -address as a welcome to her, on the night of the _congé_, before the -operetta." - -"Is her name Elizabeth, too?" I asked, bewildered. - -"No, her name is Catherine. Madame Rayburn is going to leave out the -lines about St. Elizabeth, and put in something about St. Catherine -of Siena instead. That's why she wanted the address. And she is going -to change the part about not sharing the Senate's stern debate, nor -guiding with faltering hand the helm of state, because St. Catherine -did guide the helm of state. At least, she went to Avignon, and argued -with the Pope." - -"Argued with the Pope!" echoed Marie, scandalized. - -"She was a saint, Marie," said Elizabeth impatiently, and driving -home an argument with which Marie herself had familiarized us. "She -persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome. Madame Rayburn would like Kate -Shaw to make the address; but she says there isn't time for another -girl to study it." - -"When is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena?" cried Tony, fired -suddenly by a happy thought. "Maybe we'll have another _congé_ then." - -She rushed off to consult her prayer-book. Lilly followed her, and in a -moment their two heads were pressed close together, as they scanned the -Roman calendar hopefully. But before my eyes rose the image of Reverend -Mother, our lost Reverend Mother, with the slow teardrop rolling down -her cheek. Her operetta was to be sung to another. Her address was -to be made to another. Her very saint was pushed aside in honour of -another holy patroness. "The King is dead. Long live the King." - - - - -The Game of Love - - -It was an ancient and honourable convent custom for the little girls in -the Second Cours to cultivate an ardent passion for certain carefully -selected big girls in the First Cours, to hold a court of love, and vie -with one another in extravagant demonstrations of affection. We were -called "satellites," and our homage was understood to be of that noble -and exalted nature which is content with self-immolation. No response -of any kind was ever vouchsafed us. No favours of any kind were ever -granted us. The objects of our devotion--ripe scholars sixteen and -seventeen years old--regarded us either with good-humoured indifference -or unqualified contempt. Any other line of action on their part would -have been unprecedented and disconcerting. We did not want petting. We -were not the lap-dog variety of children. We wanted to play the game -of love according to set rules,--rules which we found in force when we -came to school, and which we had no mind to alter. - -Yet one of these unwritten laws--which set a limit to inconstancy--I -had already broken; and Elizabeth, who was an authority on the code, -offered a grave remonstrance. "We really don't change that quickly," -she said with concern. - -I made no answer. I had "changed" very quickly, and, though incapable -of self-analysis, I was not without a dim foreboding that I would -change again. - -"You were wild about Isabel Summers," went on Elizabeth accusingly. - -"No, I wasn't," I confessed. - -"But you said you were." - -Again I was silent. The one thing a child cannot do is explain a -complicated situation, even to another child. How could I hope to -make Elizabeth understand that, eager to worship at some shrine, I -had chosen Isabel Summers with a deliberation that boded ill for my -fidelity. She was a thin, blue-eyed girl, with a delicate purity of -outline, and heavy braids of beautiful fair hair. Her loveliness, her -sensitive temperament, her early and tragic death (she was drowned -the following summer), enshrined her sweetly in our memories. She -became one of the traditions of the school, and we told her tale--as -of another Virginia--to all new-comers. But in the early days when I -laid my heart at her feet, I knew only that she had hair like pale -sunshine, and that, for a First Cours girl, she was strangely tolerant -of my attentions. If I ventured to offer her the dozen chestnuts that -had rewarded an hour's diligent search, she thanked me for them with -a smile. If I darned her stockings with painstaking neatness,--a -privilege solicited from Sister O'Neil, who had the care of our -clothes,--she sometimes went so far as to commend my work. I felt -that I was blessed beyond my comrades (Ella Holrook snubbed Tony, and -Antoinette Mayo ignored Lilly's existence), yet there were moments -when I detected a certain insipidity in the situation. It lacked the -incentive of impediment. - -Then in November, Julia Reynolds, who had been absent, I know not why, -returned to school; and I realized the difference between cherishing -a tender passion and being consumed by one, between fanning a flame -and being burned. To make all this clear to Elizabeth, who was passion -proof, lay far beyond my power. When she said,-- - - "Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here," - ---or words to that effect,--I had not even Romeo's feeble excuses to -offer, though I was as obstinate as Romeo in clinging to my new love. -Tony supported me, having a roving fancy of her own, and being constant -to Ella Holrook, only because that imperious graduate regarded her as -an intolerable nuisance. - -Julia's views on the subject of satellites were even more pronounced. -She enjoyed a painful popularity in the Second Cours, and there were -always half a dozen children abjectly and irritatingly in love with -her. She was held to be the cleverest girl in the school, a reputation -skilfully maintained by an unbroken superciliousness of demeanour. -Her handsome mouth was set in scornful lines; her words, except to -chosen friends, were few and cold. She carried on an internecine -warfare with Madame Bouron, fighting that redoubtable nun with her -own weapons,--icy composure, a mock humility, and polite phrases that -carried a hidden sting. It was for this, for her arrogance,--she was -as contemptuous as a cat,--and for a certain elusiveness, suggestive -even to my untrained mind of new and strange developments, that I -surrendered to her for a season all of my heart,--all of it, at least, -that was not the permanent possession of Madame Rayburn and Elizabeth. - -Elizabeth was not playing the game. She was nobody's satellite just -then, being occupied with a new cult for a new nun, whom it pleased -her to have us all adore. The new nun, Madame Dane, was a formidable -person, whom, left to myself, I should have timorously avoided; but -for whom, following Elizabeth's example, I acquired in time a very -creditable enthusiasm. She was tall and high-shouldered, and she -had what Colly Cibber felicitously describes as a "poking head." -We, who had yet to hear of Colly Cibber, admired this peculiar -carriage,--Elizabeth said it was aristocratic,--and we imitated it -as far as we dared, which was not very far, our shoulders being as -rigorously supervised as our souls. Any indication of a stoop on -_my_ part was checked by an hour's painful promenade up and down the -corridor, with a walking-stick held between my elbows and my back, and -a heavy book balanced on my head. The treatment was efficacious. Rather -than be so wearisomely ridiculous, I held myself straight as a dart. - -Madame Dane, for all her lack of deportment, was the stiffest and -sternest of martinets. She had a passion for order, for precision, for -symmetry. It was, I am sure, a lasting grievance to her that we were of -different heights, and that we could never acquire the sameness and -immobility of chessmen. She did her best by arranging and rearranging -us in the line of procession when we marched down to the chapel, -unable to decide whether Elizabeth was a hair's breadth taller than -Tony, whether Mary Aylmer and Eloise Didier matched exactly, whether -Viola had better walk before Maggie McCullah, or behind her. She -never permitted us to open our desks during study hours, or when we -were writing our exercises. This was a general rule, but Madame Dane -alone enforced it absolutely. If I forgot to take my grammar or my -natural philosophy out of my desk when I sat down to work (and I was an -addlepated child who forgot everything), I had to go to class with my -grammar or my natural philosophy unstudied, and bear the consequences. -To have borrowed my neighbour's book would have been as great a breach -of discipline as to have hunted for my own. At night and morning -prayers we were obliged to lay our folded hands in exactly the same -position on the second rung of our chair backs. If we lifted them -unconsciously to the top rung, Madame Dane swooped down upon us like -a falcon upon errant doves,--which was dreadfully distracting to our -devotions. - -"I don't see how she stands our hair being of different lengths," said -Tony. "It must worry her dreadfully. I caught her the other night -eyeing Eloise Didier's long plats and my little pigtails in a most -uneasy manner. Some day she'll insist on our all having it cut short, -like Elizabeth and Agnes." - -"That would be sensible," said Elizabeth stoutly, while Lilly put up -her hands with a quick, instinctive gesture, as if to save her curly -locks from destruction. - -"_You_ needn't talk," went on Tony with impolite emphasis, "after -what you made her go through last Sunday. You and Agnes in your old -black veils. I don't believe she was able to read her Mass prayers for -looking at you." - -Elizabeth grinned. She was not without a humorous enjoyment of the -situation. Our black veils, which throughout the week were considered -decorous and devotional, indicated on Sundays--when white veils were in -order--a depth of unpardoned and unpardonable depravity. When Elizabeth -and I were condemned to wear ours to Sunday Mass and Vespers,--two -little black sheep in that vast snowy flock,--we were understood to -be, for the time, moral lepers, to be cut off from spiritual communion -with the elect. We were like those eminent sinners who, in the good old -days when people had an eye to effect, did penance in sheets and with -lighted tapers at cathedral doors,--thus adding immeasurably to the -interest of church-going, and to the general picturesqueness of life. -The ordeal was not for us the harrowing thing it seemed. Elizabeth's -practical mind had but a feeble grasp of symbols. Burne-Jones and -Maeterlinck would have conveyed no message to her, and a black veil -amid the Sunday whiteness failed to disturb her equanimity. As for -me, I was content to wear what Elizabeth wore. Where MacGregor sat -was always the head of the table. The one real sufferer was the -innocent Madame Dane, whose Sabbath was embittered by the sight of two -sable spots staining the argent field, and by the knowledge that the -culprits were her own Second Cours children, for whom she held herself -responsible. - -"She told me," said Elizabeth, "that if ever I let such a thing happen -to me again, I shouldn't walk by her side all winter." - -Lilly lifted her eyebrows, and Tony gave a grunt of deep significance. -It meant that this would be an endurable misfortune. A cult was all -very well, and Tony, like the rest of us, was prepared to play an -honourable part. But Elizabeth's persistent fancy for walking by our -idol's side at recreation had become a good deal of a nuisance. We -considered that Madame Dane was, for a grown-up person, singularly -vivacious and agreeable. She told us some of Poe's stories--notably -"The Pit and the Pendulum"--in a manner which nearly stopped the -beating of our hearts. We were well disposed even to her rigours. There -was a straightforwardness about her methods which commended itself to -our sense of justice no less than to our sense of humour. She dealt -with us after fashions of her own; and, if she were constitutionally -incapable of distinguishing between wilful murder and crossing one's -legs in class, she would have scorned to carry any of our misdemeanours -to Madame Bouron's tribunal. We felt that she had companionable -qualities, rendered in some measure worthless by her advanced years; -for, after all, adults have but a narrow field in which to exercise -their gifts. There was a pleasant distinction in walking by Madame -Dane's side up and down Mulberry Avenue, even in the unfamiliar society -of Adelaide Harrison, and Mary Rawdon, who was a green ribbon, and -Ellie Plunkett, who was head of the roll of honour; but it would have -been much better fun to have held aloof, and have played that we -were English gypsies, and that Madame Dane was Ulrica of the Banded -Brow,--just then our favourite character in fiction. - -Ulrica sounds, I am aware, as if she belonged in the Castle of Udolpho; -but she was really a virtuous and nobly spoken outlaw in a story called -"Wild Times," which was the most exciting book--the only madly exciting -book--the convent library contained. It dealt with the religious -persecutions of Elizabeth's glorious but stringent reign, and was a -good, thorough-going piece of partisan fiction, like Fox's "Book of -Martyrs," or Wodrow's "Sufferings of the Church of Scotland." I cannot -now remember why Ulrica's brow was banded,--I believe she had some -dreadful mark upon it,--but she was always alluding to its screened -condition in words of thrilling intensity. "Seek not to know the secret -of my shame. Never again shall the morning breeze nor the cool breath -of evening fan Ulrica's brow."--"Tear from my heart all hope, all -pity, all compunction; but venture not to lift the veil which hides -forever from the eye of man the blighting token of Ulrica's shame." We -loved to picture this mysterious lady--whose life, I hasten to say, -was most exemplary--as tall, high-shouldered, and stern, like Madame -Dane; and we merged the two characters together in a very agreeable and -convincing way. It enraptured us to speak of the mistress of the Second -Cours as "Ulrica," to tell one another that some day we should surely -forget, and call her by that name (than which nothing was less likely), -and to wonder what she would say and do if she found out the liberty we -had taken. - -A little private diversion of this kind was all the more necessary -because the whole business of loving was essentially a public affair. -Not that we were capable of voicing our affections,--Marie alone -had the gift of expression,--but we ranged ourselves in solid -ranks for and against the favourites of the hour. The system had -its disadvantages. It deprived us of individual distinction. I was -confirmed that winter, and, having found out that Madame Dane's -Christian name was Theresa, I resolved to take it for my confirmation -name, feeling that this was a significant proof of tenderness. -Unfortunately, three other children came to the same conclusion,--Ellie -Plunkett was one of them,--and the four Theresas made such an -impression upon the Archbishop that he congratulated us in a really -beautiful manner upon our devotion to the great saint whose name we had -chosen, and whose example, he trusted, would be our beacon light. - -As for my deeper and more absorbing passion for Julia Reynolds, I -could not hope to separate it, or at least to make her separate it, -from the passions of her other satellites. She regarded us all with a -cold and impartial aversion, which was not without excuse, in view of -our reprehensible behaviour. Three times a day the Second Cours filed -through the First Cours classroom, on its way to the refectory. The -hall was always empty, as the older girls preceded us to our meals; -but at noon their hats and coats and shawls were laid neatly out upon -their chairs, ready to be put on as soon as dinner was eaten. Julia -Reynolds had a black and white plaid shawl, the sight of which goaded -us to frenzy. If Madame Dane's eyes were turned for one instant from -our ranks, some daring child shot madly across the room, wrenched a -bit of fringe from this beloved shawl, and, returning in triumph with -her spoil, wore it for days (I always lost mine) pinned as a love-knot -to the bib of her alpaca apron. Viola Milton performed this feat so -often that she became purveyor of fringe to less audacious girls, and -gained honour and advantages thereby. Not content with such vandalism, -she conceived the daring project of stealing a lock of hair. She hid -herself in a music room, and, when Julia went by to her music lesson, -stole silently behind her, and snipped off the end of one of her -long brown braids. This, with the generosity of a highwayman, she -distributed, in single hairs, to all who clamoured for them. To me she -gave half a dozen, which I gummed up for safe-keeping in an envelope, -and never saw again. - -It was a little trying that Viola--certainly, as I have made plain, -the least deserving of us all--should have been the only child who -ever obtained a word of kindness from our divinity. But this was the -irony of fate. Three days after the rape of the lock, she was sent to -do penance for one of her many misdemeanours by sitting under the -clock in the corridor, a post which, for some mysterious reason, was -consecrated to the atonement of sin. In an hour she returned, radiant, -beatified. Julia Reynolds had gone by on her way to the chapel; and -seeing the little solitary figure--which looked pathetic, though it -wasn't--had given her a fleeting smile, and had said "Poor Olie," as -she passed. - -This was hard to bear. It all came, as I pointed out acrimoniously -to Tony, of Viola's being at least a head shorter than she had any -business to be at ten years old, and of her having such absurdly thin -legs, and great, melancholy eyes. Of course people felt sorry for her, -whereas they might have known--they ought to have known--that she was -incapable of being abashed. She would just as soon have sat astride the -clock as under it. - -One advantage, however, I possessed over all competitors. I took -drawing lessons, and so did Julia Reynolds. Twice a week I sat at -a table near her, and spent an hour and a half very pleasantly and -profitably in watching all she did. I could not draw. My mother seemed -to think that because I had no musical talent, and never in my life was -able to tell one note--nor indeed one tune--from another, I must, by -way of adjustment, have artistic qualities. Mr. James Payn was wont to -say that his gift for mathematics consisted mainly of distaste for the -classics. On precisely the same principle, I was put to draw because I -could not play or sing. An all-round incapacity was, in those primitive -days, a thing not wholly understood. - -The only branch of my art I acquired to perfection was the sharpening -of pencils and crayons; and, having thoroughly mastered this -accomplishment, I ventured in a moment of temerity to ask Julia if I -might sharpen hers. At first she decisively refused; but a week or two -later, seeing the deftness of my work, and having a regard for her own -hands, she relented, and allowed me this privilege. Henceforward I felt -that my drawing lessons were not given in vain. Even Dr. Eckhart's -unsparing condemnation of my sketches--which were the feeblest of -failures--could not destroy my content. Love was with me a stronger -emotion than vanity. I used to look forward all week to those two happy -afternoons when I was graciously permitted to waste my time and blacken -my fingers in humble and unrequited service. - -Julia drew beautifully. She excelled in every accomplishment, as in -every branch of study. She sang, she played, she painted, she danced, -with bewildering ease and proficiency. French and Latin presented no -stumbling-blocks to her. The heights and abysses of composition were -for her a level and conquered country. Logic and geometry were, so -to speak, her playthings. We were bewildered by such universality of -genius,--something like Michael Angelo's,--and when I remember that, -in addition to these legitimate attainments, she was the most gifted -actress on our convent stage, I am at a loss now to understand why the -world is not ringing with her name. - -Certain it is that she was the pride of Dr. Eckhart's heart, the one -solace of his harassed and tormented life. He was an elderly German, -irascible in disposition, and profane in speech. His oaths were -Teutonic oaths, but were not, on that account, the less thunderous. He -taught music and drawing,--those were not the days of specialists,--so -all the time that his ears were not vexed with weak and tremulous -discords, his eyes were maddened by crippled lines, and sheets of -smutty incompetence. The result of such dual strain was that his -spirit, which could hardly have been gentle at the outset, had grown -savage as a Tartar's. When Christopher North ventured to say that the -wasp is the only one of God's creatures perpetually out of temper, it -was because he never knew Carlyle or Dr. Eckhart. - -This irate old gentleman was an admirable teacher,--or at least he -would have been an admirable teacher if we could have enjoyed eternal -youth in which to profit by his lessons, to master step by step the -deep-laid foundations of an art. As it was, few of us ever got beyond -the first feeble paces, beyond those prolonged beginnings which had no -significance in our eyes. Yet we knew that other children, children -not more richly endowed by nature than we were, made real pictures -that, with careful retouching, were deemed worthy of frames, and of -places upon parental walls. Adelaide Harrison had a friend who went -to a fashionable city school, and who had sent her--in proof of wide -attainments--a work of art which filled us with envy and admiration. -It was a winter landscape; a thatched cottage with wobbly walls, a bit -of fence, and two quite natural-looking trees, all drawn on a prepared -surface of blue and brown,--blue on top for the sky, brown underneath -for the earth. Then--triumph of realism--this surface was scraped away -in spots with a penknife, and the white cardboard thus brought to light -presented a startling resemblance to snow,--snow on the cottage roof, -snow on the branches of the trees, patches of snow on the ground. It -seemed easy to do, and was beautiful when done,--a high order of art, -and particularly adapted, by reason of its wintriness, for Christmas -gifts. I urged Adelaide to show it to Dr. Eckhart, and to ask him if we -might not do something like it, instead of wasting our young lives, and -possibly some hidden genius, in futile attempts to draw an uninspiring -group of cones and cylinders. Adelaide, who was not without courage, -and whose family had a high opinion of her talents, undertook this -dangerous commission, and at our next lesson actually proffered her -request. - -Dr. Eckhart glared like an angry bull. He held the landscape out at -arm's length, turning it round and round, as if uncertain which was -earth and which was heaven. "And that," he said, indicating with a -derisive thumb a spot of white, "what, may I ask, is that?" - -"Snow," said Adelaide. - -"Snow!" with a harsh cackle. "And do we then scratch in the ground like -hens for snow? Eh! tell me that! Like hens?" And he laughed, softened -in some measure by an appreciation of his own wit. - -Adelaide stood her ground. But she thought it as well to have some one -stand by her side. "Agnes wants to do a picture, too," she said. - -Dr. Eckhart gasped. If I had intimated a desire to build a cathedral, -or write an epic, or be Empress of India, he could not have been more -astounded. "L'audace, l'audace, et toujours l'audace." Words failed -him, but, reaching over, he picked up my drawing-board, and held it -aloft as one might hold a standard; held it rigidly, and contemplated -for at least three minutes the wavering outlines of my work. Most of -the class naturally looked at it too. The situation was embarrassing, -and was made no easier when, after this prolonged exposure, my board -was replaced with a thump upon the table, and Dr. Eckhart said in a -falsetto imitation of Adelaide's mincing tones: "Agnes wants to do a -picture, too." Then without another word of criticism--no more was -needed--he moved away, and sat down by Julia Reynolds's side. She alone -had never lifted her eyes during this brief episode, had never deemed -it worthy of attention. I felt grateful for her unconcern, and yet -was humbled by it. It illustrated my sterling insignificance. Nothing -that I did, or failed to do, could possibly interest her, even to the -raising of an eyelid. At least, so I thought then. I was destined to -find out my mistake. - -It was through Elizabeth that the new discovery was made. All our -inspirations, all the novel features of our life, owed their origin to -her. The fertility of her mind was inexhaustible. A few days after -this memorable drawing lesson she drew me into a corner at recreation, -and, rolling up her sleeve, showed me her arm. There, scratched on the -smooth white skin, bloody, unpleasant, and distinct, were the figures -150. - -I gazed entranced. A hundred and fifty was Madame Dane's number (the -nuns as well as the girls all had numbers), and for months past it had -been the emblem of the cult. We never saw it without emotion. When it -stood at the head of a page, we always encircled it in a heart. When -we found it in our arithmetics, we encircled it in a heart. We marked -all our books with these three figures set in a heart, and we cut them -upon any wooden substance that came to hand,--not our polished and -immaculate desks, but rulers, slate borders, and the swings. And now, -happiest of happy devices, Elizabeth had offered her own flesh as a -background for these beloved numerals. - -The spirit of instant emulation fired my soul. I thought of Julia's -number, twenty-one, and burned with desire to carve it monumentally -upon myself. "What did you do it with?" I asked. - -"A pin, a penknife, and a sharpened match," answered Elizabeth proudly. - -I shuddered. These surgical instruments did not invite confidence; but -not for worlds would I have acknowledged my distaste. Besides, it is -sweet to suffer for those we love. I resolved to out-herod Herod, and -use my hand instead of my arm as a commemorative tablet. There was a -flamboyant publicity about this device which appealed to my Latin blood. - -It did not appeal to Elizabeth, and she offered the practical -suggestion that publicity, when one is not a free agent, sometimes -entails unpleasant consequences. My arm was, so to speak, my own, and -I might do with it what I pleased; but my hand was open to scrutiny, -and there was every reason to fear that Madame Dane would disapprove -of the inscription. Her arguments were unanswerable, but their very -soundness repelled me. I was in no humour for sobriety. - -I did the work very neatly that night in my alcove, grateful, before it -was over, that there were only two figures in twenty-one. The next day -Viola followed my example. I knew she would. There was no escaping from -Viola. Tony cut seventy-seven, Ella Holrook's number, upon her arm. -Annie Churchill and Lilly heroically cut a hundred and fifty on theirs. -The fashion had been set. - -In three days half the Second Cours bore upon their suffering little -bodies these gory evidences of their love. And for four days no one -in authority knew. Yet we spent our time delightfully in examining -one another's numerals, and freshening up our own. Like young savages, -we incited one another to painful rites, and to bloody excesses. That -Viola's hand and mine should for so long have escaped detection seems -miraculous; but Madame Dane, though keenly observant, was a trifle -near-sighted. She may have thought the scratches accidental. - -On the fifth morning, as I came out from Mass, Madame Rayburn's eye -lighted by chance upon the marks. She was not near-sighted, and she -never mistook one thing for another. A single glance told her the -story. A single instant decided her course of action. "Agnes," she -said, and I stepped from the ranks, and stood by her side. I knew -what she had seen; but I did not know what she proposed doing, and my -heart beat uneasily. We waited until the First Cours filed out of the -chapel. Last, because tallest, came Ella Holrook and Julia Reynolds. -"Julia," said Madame Rayburn, and she, too, left the ranks and joined -us. No word was spoken until the long line of girls--burning with -futile curiosity, but too well trained even to turn their heads--had -passed through the corridor. Then Madame Rayburn took my hand in her -firm grasp and held it up to view. "Look at this, Julia," she said. - -I had supposed it impossible to move Julia Reynolds to wrath, to arouse -in her any other sentiment than the cold contempt, "la fierté honorable -et digne," which she cultivated with so much care. But I had not -calculated on this last straw of provocation following upon all she had -previously endured. When she saw her number on my hand, she crimsoned, -and her eyes grew dark. She was simply and unaffectedly angry,--what -we in unguarded conversation called "mad." - -"I won't have it," she said passionately. "I won't! It's too much to be -borne. I won't put up with it another hour. Why should I be tormented -all my life by these idiotic children? Look at my shawl,--how they have -torn off half the fringe. It isn't fit to be worn. Look at my desk! I -never open it without finding it littered with their trash. Do I want -their old flannel penwipers? Do I want their stupid pincushions and -needle-cases? Can I possibly want book-markers of perforated cardboard, -with 'Julia' worked on them in blue sewing silk? I've had three this -week. Do they think I don't know my own name, and that I have to be -reminded of it by them? They have no business to go near my desk. -They have no business to put anything in it. And I don't want their -candy. And I don't want them to darn my stockings in hard lumps. I've -never encouraged one of them in my life." (Alas! Julia, this was your -undoing.) "I've never spoken to one of them. I did let her" (a scornful -nod at me) "sharpen my crayons in drawing class, and I suppose this -impertinence is the result. I suppose she thinks she is a favourite. -Well, she isn't. And this is going a good deal too far. My number -belongs to me personally, just as much as my name does. I won't have it -paraded around the Second Cours. It stands for me in the school, it's -mine, and she has no right to cut it on her horrid little hand." - -There was a moment's silence. Julia's breath was spent, and Madame -Rayburn said nothing. She only looked at me. - -Now I possessed one peculiarity which had always to be reckoned with. -Timid, easily abashed, and reduced to nothingness by a word that hurt, -I was sure, if pushed too far, to stand at bay. Nor had nature left me -altogether defenceless in a hard world. Julia's first glance had opened -my eyes to the extravagance of my behaviour (Oh, that I had followed -Elizabeth's counsel!), her first reproaches had overwhelmed me with -shame. But the concentrated scorn with which she flung her taunts in -my face, and that final word about my horrid hand, stiffened me into -resistance. My anger matched her own. "All right," I said shortly; -"I'll scratch it out." - -Madame Rayburn laughed softly. She had brought upon me this dire -humiliation because she thought my folly merited the punishment; but -she was not ill-pleased to find me undismayed. As for Julia, she bent -her keen eyes on my face (the first time she had ever really looked at -me), and something that was almost a smile softened the corners of her -mouth. It was evident that the idea of scratching out what was already -so deeply scratched in pleased her wayward fancy. When she spoke again, -it was in a different voice, and though her words were unflattering, -her manner was almost kind. "If you are not altogether a fool," she -said, "and that sounds as if you were not, why do you behave like one?" - -To this query I naturally made no reply. It was not easy to answer, -and besides, at the first softening of her mood, my wrath had melted -away, carrying my courage with it. I was perilously near tears. Madame -Rayburn dropped my hand, and gave me a little nod. It meant that I -was free, and I scudded like a hare through the corridor, through the -First Cours classroom, and down into the refectory. There the familiar -aspect of breakfast, the familiar murmur of "Pain, s'il vous plait," -restored my equanimity. I met the curious glances cast at me with that -studied unconcern, that blankness of expression which we had learned -from Elizabeth, and which was to us what the turtle shell is to the -turtle,--a refuge from inquisitors. I had no mind that any one should -know the exact nature of my experience. - -That night I made good my word, and erased the twenty-one after a -thorough-going fashion I hardly like to recall. But when the operation -was over, and I curled up in my bed, I said to myself that although I -should never again wear this beloved number upon hand or arm, it would -be engraved forever on my heart. As long as I lived, I should feel for -Julia Reynolds the same passionate and unalterable devotion. Perhaps, -some time in the future, I should have the happiness of dying for -her. I was arranging the details of this charming possibility, and -balancing in my mind the respective delights of being bitten--while -defending her--by a mad dog, or being drowned in mid-ocean, having -given her my place in the life-boat, and was waving her a last farewell -from the decks of the sinking ship, when I finally fell asleep. - -The next morning was Sunday, the never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, when -Marianus for the first time served Mass. And as I watched him, -breathless with delight, Julia's image grew pale, as pale as that of -Isabel Summers, and faded quietly away. I looked at Elizabeth and Tony. -They, too, were parting with illusions. Their sore little arms might -now be permitted to heal, for their faithless hearts no longer bore a -scar. The reign of our lost loves was over. The sovereignty of Marianus -had begun. - - - - - The Riverside Press - _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ - - - - -TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: - - - Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been - standardized. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Our Convent Days, by Agnes Repplier - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN OUR CONVENT DAYS *** - -***** This file should be named 55703-8.txt or 55703-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/0/55703/ - -Produced by David E. 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