“Please do it, Betty!” sobbed poor Hatty. “Do it, for pity’s sake!”
“I’ll do it for yours, Miss Hester,” said the girl, and her kindly, honest-looking face reassured me. She hid the paper in her bosom, and ran down. I locked the door again, and went back to Hatty.
“O Cary, dear, God sent you!” she sobbed. “I thought I must give in.”
“What are they trying to make you do, Hatty?”
To my amazement, she replied,—“To be a nun.”
“To be what?” I shrieked. “Are these people Papists, then?”
“Not to acknowledge it. I had not an idea when we came—nor the Bracewells, I am sure.”
“And did they want all three of you to be nuns?”
“No—only me, I believe. I heard Father Godfrey saying to the Mother that neither Charlotte nor Amelia would answer the purpose: but what the purpose was, I don’t know.”
“Who are you talking about? Who is Father Godfrey?—Mr Crossland?”