"Indeed, Mr. Lane, truth compels me to say that I am here in deep retirement. I have been contemplating a convent."
"May I ask your motive?"
"To repent of my sins."
"You would have to confess at a convent. Why not imagine me a venerable father, dozing after a good dinner, and make your first essay at the confessional?"
"You tax my imagination too greatly. So I should have to confess; therefore no convent for me."
"Of course not. I should protest against it at the very altar, and in the teeth of the Pope himself. Can't you repent of your sins in some other way?"
"I suppose I shall have to."
"They would be a queer lot of little peccadilloes. I should like to set them all under a microscope."
"I would rather that your glass should be a goblet brimmed from
Lethe."
"There is no Lethe for me, Miss Marian, so far as you are concerned."