“Well,” said I, “I always thought Father Hamon something less wise than Father Benedict: at least, Father Benedict chides me, and Father Hamon gives me neither blame nor commendation. But, Margaret, I do not understand thy strange sayings in any wise. Surely thou knowest what is the Church?”
“I know what it is not,” saith she; “and that is Father Hamon, or Father Benedict, or Father Anything-Else. Christ and they that are Christ’s—the Head and the Body, the Bridegroom and the Bride: behold the Church, and behold her Priest and Confessor!”
“Margaret,” saith Mother Alianora, “who taught thee that? Where didst thou hear such learning?”
She did not speak chidingly, but only as if she desired information. I was surprised she was not more severe, for truly I never heard such talk, and I was sorely afraid for my poor Margaret, lest some evil thing had got hold of her—maybe the Devil himself in the likeness of some Sister in her old convent.
A wave of pain swept over Margaret’s eyes when Mother Alianora said that, and a dreamy look of calm came and chased it thence.
“Where?” she said. “In the burning fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than its wont. Of whom? Verily, I think, of that Fourth that walked there, who was the Son of God. He walks oftener, methinks, in the fiery furnace with His martyrs, than in the gilded galleries with the King Nebuchadnezzar and his princes. At least I have oftener found Him there.”
She seemed as if she lost herself in thought, until Mother Alianora saith, in her soft, faint voice—“Go on, my child.”
Margaret roused up as if she were awoke from sleep.
“Well!” she said, “nothing happened to me, as you may well guess, for the years of childhood that followed, when I was learning to read, write, and illuminate, to sew, embroider, cook, and serve in various ways. My Lady Prioress found that I had a wit at devising patterns and such like, so I was kept mainly to the embroidery and painting: being first reminded that it was not for mine own enjoyment, but that I should so best serve the Order. I took the words and let them drop, and I took the work and delighted in it. So matters went until I was a maid of seventeen years. And then something else came into my life.”
I asked, “What was it?” for she had paused. But her next words were not an answer.