When I was able to walk about and see my new home, which was not till cold weather, I had to confess that it was a fair one. The garden was very large and contained many fine fruit trees, apples, plums, and cherries, besides great grape vines and apricots, trained in curious fashion against the south wall.
The house had been founded in 1371, and it was said, though I doubt it, that a part of the first fabric was still standing in my time. Any how some of the building was very old, and it had been added to as convenience dictated, till there was no regularity to it; yet the material being the same throughout, and the walls much overgrown with ivy, there subsisted a certain harmony in the parts which was pleasing to the eye.
The church was a fine one and contained some valuable relics, such as Mary Magdalene's girdle—she must have had a good many girdles in her time—a bottle containing some smoke from the Virgin's fire, and a glass of St. Anne's tears, * with others which I don't now remember, all inclosed in rich reliquaries and boxes, or highly ornamented shrines. They were exposed in the church on feast days for the adoration of the faithful.
* All these relics are authentic, and may be found in Leighton's list contained in his letters.
But the faithful were not so much disposed to adore as in times past. The leaven of incredulity was spreading among the poor, and the new Learning, as it was called, among the rich. It was understood that the king himself had his doubts about such matters; he was at drawn daggers with the pope about his divorce; the great cardinal was in disgrace and likely to lose all his preferments, and nobody knew what was likely to come next.
But we young ones, shut in by the gray stone walls, were happily unconscious of the storms that raged without. Children are easily reconciled to any change that is not greatly for the worse, and I soon became as much at home as if I had always lived here. I must needs say that every one was kind to me, especially so when I was recovering.
I used to have terrible fits of homesickness, which were not lessened by the anger which still dwelt in my heart against my uncle. These usually ended in a fit of crying and that in a chill, so it is no wonder that Mother Joanna (that was the name of the Mistress of the Novices) had a dread of them. So, at the last, she took to setting me tasks and work, and finding that I had a talent for music, she put Sister Cicely upon giving me lessons upon the lute and in singing, which lessons have since been of great use to me.
At my first recovery from my sickness, as I have said, my mind was almost a blank; but by and by my memory came back and I began to recollect and compare things, and to ask questions. Mother Joanna liked me about her when she was busy. Her eyesight was not as good as it had been, and she found it convenient to have me thread her needles when she was sewing, and do other little offices for her. One day, she was preparing some work for the children (for we had a day-school in a little house near the gate, where the girls from the village learned to sew and spin and to say their prayers); one day, I say, when we were thus engaged, I ventured to ask:
"Dear mother, did my uncle come to see me when I was sick?"
"No, child, your uncle is gone abroad, as I understand, to Holland, about some matters of business—but your aunt sent to inquire for you twice."