“Art thou so weary, my daughter, that the thought grew therefore?” saith she.
Something came into Margaret’s eyes for a moment, but it was out again, almost before I could see it. I knew not what it was; Margaret’s eyes are yet a puzzle to me. They are very dark eyes, but they are different in their look from all the other dark eyes in the house. Sister Olive has eyes quite as dark; but they say nothing. Margaret’s eyes talk so much that she might do very well without her tongue. Not that I always understand what they say; the language in which they speak is generally a foreign one to me. I fancy Mother Alianora can read it better. I listened for Margaret’s reply.
“Dear Mother, is not weariness the lot of all humanity, and more especially of women?”
“Mary love us!” cries Philippa. “What gibberish you talk, Sister Margaret!”
“Sister Philippa will come here and ask Sister Margaret’s forgiveness at once,” saith Mother Gaillarde, the sub-Prioress.
Sister Philippa banged down her battledore on the table, and marching up, knelt before Margaret and asked forgiveness, making a face behind her back as soon as she had turned.
“Sister Philippa will take no cheese at supper,” added the sub-Prioress.
Sister Philippa pulled another face—a very ugly one; it reminded me somewhat too much of the carved figure of the Devil with his mouth gaping on the Prior’s stall in our Abbey Church. That and Sister Philippa’s faces are the ugliest things I ever saw, except the Cellarer, and he looks so good-tempered that one forgets his ugliness.
“Sister Philippa is not weary, as it should seem,” saith Mother Alianora, again with her quiet smile. “Otherwise, to speak thereof should scarcely seem gibberish to her.”
I spoke not, but I thought it was in no wise gibberish to me. For I never had that vocation which alone should make nuns. Not God, but man, forced this veil upon me; for, ah me! I was meant for another life. And that other life, that should have been mine, I never cease to long for and to mourn over.