“We were put here to mortify our sins,” said she: “and wala wa! some of us don’t do it. I dare say old Gaillarde’s as bad as any body. But I cannot stand Sister Ada’s talk, when she wants to make every creature of us into stones and stocks. She just inveighs against loving one another because she loves nobody but Ada Mansell, and never did. Oh! I knew her well enough when we were young maids in the world. She was an only child, and desperately spoiled: and her father joined in the Lancaster insurrection long ago, and it ruined his fortunes, so she came into a convent. That’s her story. Ada Mansell is the pivot of her thoughts and actions—always will be.”
“Nay,” said I; “let us hope God will give her grace to change, if it be as you say.”
“It’ll take a precious deal of grace to change some folks!” said Sister Gaillarde, satirically. “Hope many of them won’t want it at once, or there’ll be such a run upon the treasury there’ll be none left for you and me. Well! that’s foolish talk. My tongue runs away with me now and then. Don’t get quite out of patience with your silly old Sister Gaillarde. Ah! perhaps I should have been a wiser woman, and a better too, if something had not happened to me that curdled the milk of my human kindness, and sent me in here, just because I could not bear outside any longer—could not bear to see what had been mine given to another—well, well! We are all poor old sinners, we Sisters. And as to perfection—my belief is that any woman may be perfect in any life, so far as that means having a true heart towards God, and an honest wish to do His will rather than our own—and I don’t believe in perfection of any other sort. As to all that rubbish men talk about having no will at all, and being delighted to mortify your will, and so forth—my service to the lot of it. Why, what you like to have crossed isn’t your will; what you delight in can’t be mortification. It is just like playing at being good. Eh, dear me, there are some simpletons in this world! Well, good-night, Sister: pax tibi!”
Sister Gaillarde’s hand was on the latch when she looked back.
“There, now I’m forgetting half of what I had to tell you. Father Hamon’s going away.”
“Is he?—whither?”
“Can’t say. I hope our next confessor will be a bit more alive.”
“Father Benedict is alive, I am sure.”
“Father Benedict’s a draught of vinegar, and Father Hamon’s been a bowl of curds. I should like somebody betwixt.”
And Sister Gaillarde left me.