There was a fresh burst of merriment.
“Pour une novice anglaise, ah, par example!”
“Voilà bien Sœur Encarnaçion! une de ses idées à elle. Une religieuse qui s’appelerait Lolita! Ce serait gentil!”
Sœur Encarnaçion looked self-conscious, and the novice-mistress said at once:
“Come, my children, you are not very wide awake. We have only five minutes more—I see that I must help you. What do we call our little retraitante at present?”
“Sister Frances!”
“She is keeping her own name, then?”
“Could she have a better one? St. Francis of Assisi—dear St. Francis of Sales—what a collection of patrons to choose from.”
“Is it Frances Mary or Mary Frances, ma Mère?” inquired the American, whose baptismal names were Belinda Oriane, and upon whom had been bestowed the appellation of Sister Perpetua.
“Frances Mary,” replied the novice-mistress, rising from her seat, at which signal work was instantly folded into baskets and silence resumed.