“Poor ignorant child! When thou comest to make confession, thou wilt find that the priest will set thee for penance, so many Aves and so many Paternosters.”
“What are those?”
“Dost thou never pray?” gasped Eularia.
“I never say so many of one thing, and so many of another,” answered Beatrice, half laughing. “I never heard anything so absurd. The holy prophets did not pray in that way.”
“Of course they did!” exclaimed Eularia. “How could they obtain help of our Lady, without repeating Ave and Salve?”
“How could they, indeed, before she was born?” was the retort.
“Oh dear, dear!” said Eularia. “Why, thou knowest nothing.”
Beatrice privately thought that she would prefer not to know all that rubbish. Plenty of it was served up to her before she left the convent, by the holy Sisters of Saint Clare.
It was nearly three weeks before Bruno came for her, and very weary of her hosts she was. They were no less astonished and dismayed by her. The ignorant heathen would not worship the holy images, would not use holy water, would not kneel before the holy Sacrament, would not do this, that, and the other: and, not content with this series of negations, she actually presumed to reason about them!
“What dost thou believe?” despairingly demanded Sister Eularia at last.