“Rubbish!” said Sister Gaillarde in her most emphatic style. “Don’t, for mercy’s sake, be taken in by such nonsense. It is a wonder what folks can get into their heads when they have nothing else in them! Sister Ada is very much concerned about the low tone of spirituality which she sees in you—stupid baggage! She is miserably afraid you are a long way off perfection. I’m more concerned a deal about her.”
“But, Sister Gaillarde, it is true!” said I. “I am very, very far from being perfect, and I fear I never shall be.”
“Well!” saith she, “if I had to go into the next world holding on to somebody’s skirts, I’d a sight rather they were yours than Sister Ada’s. I do think some folks were born just to be means of grace and nothing else. Maybe it is as well some of them should get into nunneries.”
“Some are rather trying, I must admit,” said I. “Sister Roberga—”
“Oh, Sister Roberga! she’s just a butterfly and no better. Brush her off—she’s good for no more. But she isn’t one that tries me like some other folks. You did not hear what happened yesterday between Sisters Ada and Margaret?”
“No. What was it?”
“Some of the Sisters were talking about hymns in recreation. Sister Margaret said she admired the Dies Irae. Sister Ada wanted to know what she admired; she could not see any thing to admire; it was just a jingle of words, and nothing else. The rhymes might be good to remember by—that was all. I saw the look on Sister Margaret’s face: of course she did not answer the Mother. But I did. I told her that I believed if any one showed her a beautiful rose, she would call it a red vegetable. ‘Well,’ quoth she, ‘and what is it else? I never smell a rose or any other flower. We were put here to mortify our senses.’ ‘Sister Ada,’ said I, ‘the Lord took a deal of pains for nothing, so far as you were concerned.’ Well, she said that was profane: but I don’t believe it. The truth is, she’s just one of those dull souls that cannot see beauty, nor smell fragrance, nor hear music; and so she assumes her dulness as virtue, and tries to make it out that those who have their senses are carnal and worldly. But just touch her pride, and doesn’t it fly up in arms! Depend upon it, Sister Annora, men are quite as often taken for fools because they can see what other folks can’t, as because they can’t see what other folks can.”
“I dare say that is true,” said I. “But—forgive me, Sister Gaillarde—ought we to be talking over our Sisters?”
“Sister Annora, you are too good for this world!” she answered, rather impatiently. “If one may not let out a bit, just now and then, what is one to do?”
“But,” said I, “we were put here to mortify ourselves.”