Mère Pauline was an exceedingly small, upright person, with black eyes to which a pair of large round spectacles gave an air of inquiry, a hooked nose, and a thin, decided little mouth. She spoke English fluently, although with the unmistakable accent and intonation of a Frenchwoman.
“Mrs. Severing?” she inquired of Nina. “I am very glad to see you—and this is Lady Argent’s little friend. I may call you Frances, dear? I ’ave ’eard so much about you. ’Ow nice to see you ’ere.”
Like the majority of her countrywomen, she altogether ignored the letter H.
After a few moments’ conversation, the nun offered to show her visitors to their bedrooms.
“We have not much room,” she said smilingly, preceding them up a long flight of narrow stairs. “The house is full of ladies who are come for the Retreat, as well as all our permanent lady boarders.”
“Have you many?” inquired Nina, panting slightly from the ascent, which Mère Pauline was conducting with a sort of businesslike rapidity.
“Six or seven who are permanently at home here, and then a number which is always varying, of young girls whose parents have confided them to us for a time to learn English. They are for the most part Spanish, or French. They have given up their rooms for the Retreat, and have moved upstairs into the piano-cells,” said Mère Pauline serenely.
She stopped before a door where a neat card was pinned with Mrs. Severing’s name upon it. Just above it, a red-bordered scroll proclaimed in Gothic lettering “Ste. Perpétue.”
“I have put you into Ste. Perpétue as it has a very nice aspect,” announced the Superior, “and Frances is next door—St. Félicitée. You see, you can look out upon our little piece of garden.”
She advanced into the room, which was a very small and narrow one, with distempered green walls, a low iron bed-stead, a washing-stand and minute chest-of-drawers combined, a straw-bottomed chair and one strip of faded carpet beside the bed. A plaster crucifix and a blue china holy-water stoup hung against the wall. Underneath stood the only concession to worldly requirements that the room contained—a looking-glass framed in wood, placed upon a tall packing-case indifferently disguised by a white and beautifully darned cotton cover.