"Can you accomplish it, daughter?" she asked. "This is a very curious piece of work."
"I can try!" said I. "If I fail, there will be no great loss."
"True, my child, but your translation?"
"Oh, Father Fabian will excuse me, or I can work at it a part of the time. Perhaps that will be the best way!"
So it was settled, and Mother Superior said she would send directly and procure the cambric and thread.
[CHAPTER VI.]
May 15th.
I HAVE drawn my patterns and made a beginning, after practising the lace stitches on something else, and am really succeeding very well. I take two hours a day for that and two for my translation. I did not mean to have my work seen till I found out whether it were like to turn out well, but Mother Sacristine was so pleased, she must needs publish the matter. I can see plainly that some of the Sisters are not pleased at all; indeed Sister Catherine said plainly 'twas not fit such an honor should be laid on the youngest person in the house, and not even one of the professed.
I am sure I never thought of its being such a great honor—only that it pleases the dear Mothers, I would much rather work at my translation or make baby clothes for the women in the village. I can't help thinking too (though perhaps I ought not to write it), that our Lord Himself would be quite as well pleased to have my skill employed in clothing the naked little ones baptized in His name, as to have it used to add one more piece of finery to the twenty-five costly copes, and other vestments in proportion, in which our house takes so much pride. But these are matters too high for me to judge, and I know He will approve of my obeying and striving to please those whom He hath set in place of parents to me.