“They are symbols,” she answered doubtfully. “Besides, we don’t know.”
“O, ma mère!” I cried. “What’s the good of being an angel, if one has to?”
“Hush!” she said. “Anyhow, they may take liberties denied to us. Besides, this young person was not an angel.”
“There you are wrong,” I cried. “She was an angel of purity.”
“Is that so?” she asked a little curiously. “Well, it makes a difference, of course. But it would have been more becoming of her to be painted by a woman. There is the respectable Madame Kauffmann, for instance, who, I am told, depicts religion and the virtues. But there, dear, we will say no more about it; only pray to the good Father, now the naughty little episode’s over, that we may be accepted meekly into His fold.”
I heard no more from Wellcot after this for a couple of days, and was beginning already to torment myself with qualms of jealousy of my sweet little vicegerent there, being at the last almost driven to break out and precipitate matters, when I was saved by a call from the darling herself. Our meeting, to which the Mother’s presence gave a conventual sanction, though fond and cordial, would have been barren of result had not my friend, with a finesse which delighted me, and the more because I had thought her incapable of it, rid us of our incumbrance.
“Good lud!” said she, after the first embrace, twinkling through her tears, “if I haven’t left my little basket of cream cheeses for the Sisters melting outside in the sun!”
The bait took instant. The Mother, with a little gentle reproof for her carelessness, waddled out with such a benevolent glare as though she had heard the last trump.
“Wait, dears, and I’ll be with you again!” said she.
The moment she was gone, Patty threw herself upon me.