"Alas!" said the young lady, "scarce a day passes that I do not offend in that respect. Example: last Friday, dining abroad, the cooks sent up a dish of collops. Oh, father, they smelt so nice; and I had been a hunting. First I smelt them: and that I couldn't help. But then I forgot custodia oculorum; and I eyed them. And the next thing was, presently—somehow—two of 'em were on my plate."
"Very wrong," said Father Francis; "but that is a harsher term than I should have applied to this longing of a hungry woman for collops o' Friday. Pray what do you understand by that big word?"
"Why, you explained it yourself, in your last sermon. It means 'unruly and inordinate desires.' Example: Edith Hammersley told me I was mad to ride in scarlet, and me so fair and my hair so light. 'Green or purple is your color,' says she: and soon after this didn't I see in Stanhope town the loveliest piece of purple broadcloth? Oh, father, it had a gloss like velvet, and the sun did so shine on it as it lay in the shop-window: it was fit for a king or a bishop: and I stood and gloated on it, and pined for it, and died for it, and down went the tenth commandment."
"Ah," said Francis, "the hearts of women are set on vanity. But tell me, these unruly affections of yours, are they ever fixed on persons of the other sex?"
The fair sinner reflected. "On gentlemen!" said she. "Why, they come pestering one of their own accord. No, no; I could do without them very well. What I sinfully pine for is meat on a Friday as sure as ever the day comes round; and high-couraged horses to ride, and fine clothes to wear every day in the week: mea culpa! mea culpa!"
Such being the dismal state of things, Francis slyly requested her to leave the seven deadly sins in peace, and go to her small offenses: for he argued shrewdly enough that since her sins were peccadilloes, perhaps some of her peccadilloes might turn out to be sins.
"Small!" cried the culprit, turning red: "they are none of them small." I really think she was jealous of her reputation as a sinner of high degree.
However she complied, and putting up her mouth, murmured a miscellaneous confession without end. The accents were soft and musical, like a babbling brook; and the sins, such as they were, poor things, rippled on in endless rotation.
Now nothing tends more to repose than a purling brook; and ere long that Bassoon, her confessor's nose, let her know she had lost his ear.
She stopped indignant. But at that he instantly awoke (sublatâ causâ, tollitur effectus), and addressed her thus with sudden dignity:—"My daughter, you will fast on Monday next, and say two Aves and a Credo. Absolvo te.