By Agnes Repplier

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IN OUR CONVENT DAYS

IN OUR
CONVENT DAYS

BY

AGNES REPPLIER, Litt.D.

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

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-Cœli,—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.”