"Must I go to-day?"
"I fear so, my dear lamb. The prioress of the convent has sent for you by the hands of their priest, and as two ladies are to travel down into Kent with him, you will be well attended."
With that, my aunt bestirred herself, and called Anne, the laundry-woman, to help in getting my clothes together. The twins had come in by that time; they had been away to visit some old kinswoman of their mother's, and they had to be told the news: Both Katherine and Avice cried bitterly, but I could not cry. I was like one stunned.
At last, at my uncle's summons, I was called down to the parlor to speak with the priest. He was a good-natured looking, easy-going specimen of a regular, and greeted me kindly enough, bestowing his blessing as I kneeled to receive it, in that rapid, mechanical fashion I so well remembered in Father Barnaby and Father John.
"And so you are coming to the convent to be a holy sister, as my good Lady Peckham desires!" said he. Then to my uncle: "In truth, 'tis a fair offering, Master Corbet. I almost wonder that having such a jewel in your hands, you should give her up—that is, if she be as towardly as she is fair of face?"
"Loveday is a good child in the main, though she has her faults and follies like other children!" replied my uncle.
"And grown folks, too, eh, Master Corbet?" said the priest, with a jolly laugh. "I don't know that the follies of youth are worse than the follies of age, do you?"
"They are not a tenth part as bad!" said mine uncle, with a good deal of bitterness. "'There is no fool like an old fool,' is a true and pithy saying."
"Even over true!" returned the priest; then turning to me: "Well, daughter, you must have wondered that you were left so long, that is, if you thought of it at all. The truth is, Sister Benedict, who had the matter in charge, died soon after she came to us, and the affair was quite forgotten, till your good uncle's letter reminding the prioress of her duty; she looked over some papers Sister Benedict had left, and found my Lady Peckham's letter."
So it was my uncle's doing. I remembered all at once his own words: "I will not have an obstinate liar in my family—" and the cloud that had rested on his brow ever since. He had done the deed in one of his hasty fits of temper, and only for him, the prioress would never have thought of sending for me.