“Haply. I’ll get father to beg the Elder to lend him that ‘Romance of Brittannia,’ for it sounds right relishing in mine ears.”
“And you love to read?”
“Dearly well.”
“Then you should have been a nun. They made much of me at Los Dolores, because I could, when I would, read the ‘Life of Teresa de Jesus’ to them.”
“And when you would not, could you not?” asked Lora mischievously.
“Indeed I couldn’t. I miscalled the words, I gabbled, I lost my place, I dropped the book, I doubled the corners and broke the parchment,—oh, they were glad enough to let me off, the poor nuns, the poor nuns!”
“And did you like the convent, Gillian?” asked Lora, so wistfully that the other paused a moment as if struck with a new idea; then throwing down her turkey’s wing she crouched upon the wolfskin, and nursing a knee between her clasped hands looked up into the pale face clearly defined against the dark leather of the chair-back, as she slowly said,—
“Why, what a nun you’d make, Lora Standish! Passing strange I never thought of it before.”
“Methinks ’twould be a happy life,” replied Lora, stifling a sigh.