The inhabitants of Quimper were more bitter, more rebellious, than those of any other town, for they greeted the officers with stones and gibes. And no wonder. The nuns had ever been good and generous and helpful to the people of Quimper. I remember well in the old days what a large amount of food and clothing went forth into the town from those hospitable doors, for the Retraite du Sacré Cœur was a rich Order.
It was with a beating heart and eager anticipation that I knocked at the convent door that morning, feeling like a little child come home after the holidays. I heard the sound of bolts slipped back, and two bright eyes peeped through the grille before the door was opened by a Sister in the white habit of the Order. I knew her face in an instant, yet could not place it. Directly she spoke I remembered it was the Sister who changed our shoes and stockings whenever we returned from a walk.
I asked for the Mother Superior. She had gone to England. I asked for one of the English nuns. She also had gone. Names that had faded out of my mind returned in the atmosphere of the convent. Yes: three of the nuns I had named were still at the convent. What was my name? the Sister asked. Who was I?
I gave my name, and instantly her face lit up.
'Why, it is Mademoiselle Dorothé!' she exclaimed, raising her hands above her head in astonishment. 'Entréz, mademoiselle et madame, entréz!'
THE VEGETABLE MARKET, QUIMPER
Through all these years, among all the girls who must have passed through the convent, she remembered me and bade me welcome. In the quiet convent so little happens that every incident is remembered and magnified and thought over.
We were taken upstairs and shown into a bare room with straight-backed chairs—a room which in my childish imagination had been a charmed and magic place, for it was here that I came always to see my mother on visiting days. We had not long to wait before, with a rustle and clinking of her cross and rosary, Mère B. appeared, a sweet woman in the black dress and pointed white coif that I knew so well. She had always been beautiful in my eyes, and she was so still, with the loveliness of a pure and saintly life shining through her large brown eyes. Her cheeks were as soft and pink as ever, and her hands, which I used to watch in admiration by the hour, were stretched out with joy to greet me.