“It is an unnatural life altogether,” said Dolores. “Why should the rotten apple have been swallowed? or, if it was, I should think a joke over it might have been wholesome.”
“Hindering priggishness in the mortified Sister,” said Gillian.
“The fact is,” said Lady Merrifield, “that if you vow yourself to an unnatural life, so to speak, you must submit to the rules that have been found best to work for it.”
“And poor Sister Beata did neither the one nor the other, by her own account,” said Jane. “She called herself a Sister, but disliked each rule, and chose to go her own way, like any other benevolent woman, doing very admirable work herself, but letting little Mena have the prestige of a Sister, while too busy to look after her, and without rules to restrain her.”
“But surely there has been no harm!” exclaimed Lady Merrifield.
“No harm, only a little incipient flirtation with the organist, nothing in any one else, but not quite like a convent maid.”
“Ah! I rather suspected,” said Agatha.
“I should think the best thing for Sister Mena would be to go to a good school, leave off her veil, in which she looks so pretty, and be treated like an ordinary girl,” said Lady Merrifield.
“That is just what Sister Beata intends,” said Miss Mohun. “She is to sink down into Miss Marian Jenkins, to wear a straw hat and blue frock, and go to school with the other girls, the pupils, while Sister Beata begins life as a probationer at Dearport.”
“Poor Sister Beata!”