"And what had Mistress Bullen to say to you?"
I repeated every word, as near as I could remember. She laid the packet aside, and seemed to muse a little, still keeping her hand on my head.
"Well, well, I believe you and trust you," she said, finally. "Do you leave the matter with me, and avoid any intimacy or conversation with Mrs. Bullen, so far as you can without exciting remark. Remember that though you have not taken the vows, you have promised your mother and been promised by her, and that 'tis a deadly sin for a religious so much as to entertain a thought of earthly love. It is treason to your heavenly Bridegroom, to whom all your allegiance is due. He has called you to a grace compared to which the highest earthly marriage is degradation and pollution; and the day that sees you vowed to Him will be the proudest of your life."
Much more she said in the same strain, as to the putting down all earthly affections and desires, and remembering that I had now no more to do with the world in any form. "You have talent and address," she concluded, "and I would fain train you up to succeed me in this chair, though it is a seat of thorns. The notion hath somehow gotten abroad that the discipline of this house is relaxed and disordered. It was that which brought us the Bishop's unexpected visit. I fear I have indeed been lax in government, and that some irregularities have crept in, as in the case of the wardrobe and storerooms, which could never have gotten into such a state if they had had due superintendence. So soon as the Queen leaves us we must have a thorough reform. Go now, my child, and as this is not your day of attendance on the Queen, you shall return to your translation, which I fear has fared but badly of late."
And with that she gave me her blessing and dismissed me to my work. I suppose I am very perverse. When Richard's packet was in my hand I was so angry with him for his thoughtlessness that I cared only to get rid of it; and now that it is out of my reach I would give anything to have it again. I dare say it is nothing after all but a simple brotherly gift, with some book of devotion or case of working tools, such as I remember he promised to send me. I am not sorry I gave it to Mother Superior, because it was the right thing to do; but—but I am a fool, and there is an end. I will never believe that Richard hath become any such court gallant as Mrs. Anne says. 'Twas not in his nature, and if I had read his letter I should have found it just such a simple, blundering epistle as he used to write me from Exeter. Strange, how my mind runs on it!
[CHAPTER XII.]
August 2.
I MET Mrs. Bullen in the garden this morning, and was passing her with a grave salutation, when she stopped me.