And Adele? She was very happy. Like most French-Canadian women, she was passionately attached to the Church. At times her happiness was dimmed by the thought that she was not looking forward to taking the veil with that eagerness that she had felt before her illness. She comforted herself with the thought that the change, somehow, was the result of her illness, and that by and by the old longings would surely return. Why her heart should beat so when Doctor Chalmers called, and what the meaning was of her looking so eagerly forward to his visiting days, she never stopped to think.
The time of her awakening was at hand!
Had Adele's thoughts been less engrossed one afternoon, as she sat on the porch, she would have noticed approaching the house, in the middle of the narrow, dusty road that ran to the church, Father Sauvalle, with his arm linked in that of her father's, both talking eagerly. The priest's hand was on the latch of the gate before she raised her head; her face lighted up, and she ran to meet them. The aged priest had known her all her life, and patted her head with fatherly affection. As they walked toward the house, he told her, impressively, that his visit this time was solely on her account.
"Yes, solely on your account, solely on your account, blessed be the Virgin!" broke in her father with strange ecstasy. She could not account for the unhappy feeling which swept over her.
They went into the little parlor, where hung the great carved wooden crucifix, which was said to be the most costly in the town, with the exception of the one in the church.
Scarcely were they seated, when her father began to tell her the great news. With eyes beaming with religious enthusiasm and pride, he told her how Father Sauvalle had received a letter from the bishop, stating that when the daughter of Hormisdas Frechette had taken the veil at the convent at St. Jerome, the honor should be bestowed upon her of being removed to the convent of the Sacred Heart at Montreal. Father Sauvalle was to be thanked for this.
Very proudly and with much solemnity the priest took a letter from the folds of his robe, and as he opened it, impressively told her the letter he held was the very one which had brought the great news. As he read it to her, his face beamed with smiles. Little wonder they were pleased, for it was an honor indeed to the little town of St. Jerome to be able to say that one of its daughters had been admitted to this convent, noted as it was for its exclusiveness and the severity of its discipline.
"The convent!" she exclaimed falteringly.
They noticed how pale her face had suddenly grown. They were not surprised; it was meet that the sudden news of the honor in store for her should cause some emotion.
"We have talked the matter over," continued the priest, graciously, "and have decided that, as you already have served your novitiate, you may as well return to the convent in a few days. In a month or so later you will be ready to take your final vows. Your father is an old man now and has been sorely tried, and has sinned deeply—yea, even uttered anathemas against the Church. But the Blessed Mother heard the prayers of the Church for your recovery, and so his soul was saved from—"