"I can guess!" said I, and we both laughed; but Amice looked very sober again, directly.
"So you see, Rosamond, I don't know what to do, because whatever Saint you choose for a model, you seem to run against somebody. And that makes me say I wish there were not so many."
"If we knew all about our Lady, or one of the Holy Apostles," said I, doubtfully; "or suppose you should take St. Clare, or St. Agnes."
"Well, St. Clare did not obey her parents either; she ran away from her father's house at midnight, and went to St. Frances!"
"Yes, but that was because she had such a high vocation," I answered, "and her parents opposed her. I suppose that is different. Anyhow, Amice, we can do as we are told, and that is always a comfort. Perhaps it is the safest way for girls like us."
"If we had our Lord's life, that would be the best of all," continued Amice, not paying much attention to my words: "but then, of course, we never could hope to follow that, when we cannot even reach the example of Saint Francis and Saint Clare. Anyhow, I wish I could read it for once—all of it."
"Why, Amice, how can you say such a thing?" said I, rather sharply, I am afraid. "Don't you know what Father Fabian said in his sermon—that it was the reading of the Scriptures by unlearned men which made all the heresies and schisms which have come up in Germany and the Low Countries?"
Amice looked so distressed that I was sorry for my words directly.
"I am sure I don't want to be a heretic, or anything else that is wrong!" said she, with tears in her eyes. "I would like to please everybody, but somehow I am always going wrong and making mistakes, as I did to-day. I keep seeing that poor woman going over the moors in the cold wind, without any cloak, and yet I meant no harm."
"I am sure you never mean to be anything but the dearest girl in the world," said I, kissing her. "As to what happened to-day, I wouldn't think of it any more."