"Then you were at school there?" said Madge.
"Not exactly; my aunt was the—what do you call it?—Lady
Superior of the convent; that was why I went there."
"And did you like it?" inquired Madge, who was apparently of opinion that such an opportunity for gaining exceptional information should not be wasted.
"I don't know," answered Madelon; "I don't think I did at the time; I used to find it very dull, and I often longed to be away. But the nuns were very kind to me; and it is pleasant to look back upon, so quiet and peaceful. I think we don't always know when and where we are happy," she added, with a little sigh.
She sat leaning against the table, her head resting on her hand, thinking over the past—as she was for ever thinking of the past now, poor child! How sad, how weary they had been, those years in the convent—yes, she knew that she had found them so—and yet how peaceful, how innocent, how sheltered! Reading her past life in the new light that every day made its shadows darker, she knew that those years were the only ones of her childhood which she could look back upon, without the sudden pang that would come with the memory of those others which she had found so happy then, but which she knew now were—what? Ah, something so different from what she had once imagined! But as for those days at the convent, they came back to her, softened by the kindly haze of time, with the strangest sense of restfulness and security, utterly at variance, one would say, with the restless longing with which she looked out on the world of action—and yet not wholly inconsistent with it perhaps, after all. Did she indeed know when and where she would be happy?
Madge, meanwhile, stood and looked at her. She had fairly fallen in love with this new cousin of hers; her beauty, and gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy brown hair and red and white daisies were reflected.
"What are you thinking of?" said Madelon, looking up suddenly.
"I—I don't know," replied Madge, quite taken aback, colouring and stammering; and then, as if she could not help it—"Oh! Cousin Madelon, you are so pretty."
"It is very pretty of you to say so," said Madelon, laughing and blushing too a little; then holding out both hands she drew Madge towards her, and kissed her on her two cheeks. "I think you and I will be great friends; will we not?" she said.
"Yes," says unresponsive Madge shortly, looking down and twisting her fingers in her awkward English fashion.