"But was it not mother's duty to love my father, since she was his wife?" I ventured to ask.
"Surely, child! 'Tis the duty of all wives. The trouble was in her being a wife at all, since she forsook a higher vocation to become one. Nobody can deny that the vocation of a religious is far higher than that of a wife."
"But if there were no wives, there would by-and-by be no religious," said I; whereat dear Mother smiled and patted my cheek, telling me that my tongue ran too fast and far for a good novice, and that she must find means to tame it. However, I do not think she was angry.
Sister Frances says that everything I do is right because I do it, and that I am the favorite both with Mother Superior and Mother Gertrude. If I am—which I don't believe, because I think both the dear Mothers mean to be just to all—I am sure I shall never take any advantage of their kindness.
When I got a chance, I showed my treasures to Amice.
"You wont keep them, will you?" asked Amice.
"Keep them! Of course I shall!" I answered, rather indignantly, I am afraid. "What would you have me do with my dear mother's rosary and the baby's curl?"
"'A good religious will have nothing which she calls her own,'" said Amice, as if quoting something. "She will strive for perfection, and to acquire that she must be wholly detached from all human affections, so that mother or child, husband or brother, shall be no more to her than the rest of the world. Are we not expressly told in the lives of the Saints that St. Francis disregarded the remonstrances and the curses of his father, and that even the tears and prayers of his mother were nothing to him? Did not St. Clare, our blessed founder, fly from her father's house at midnight, and by the advice of St. Francis himself, conceal the step she was about to take from her father and mother, and did not St. Agnes herself shortly do the same, and absolutely refuse to return, though she was but fourteen years old?"
"But Amice, Master Ellenwood told me himself, that, 'Honor thy father and mother,' is one of the chief commandments," I objected. "And besides I am not yet a religious."
"But you mean to be—you have promised to be one," answered Amice. "I don't know about the commandments, but I do know that our order is specially dedicated to holy poverty, and you cannot embrace that, and call anything your own—not so much as your rosary or the clothes you wear. I think you should burn this hair, and offer the rosary on the shrine of our Lady, in the garden."