"It does not become her elders to give cause of reproof!" said Sister Bridget, a quiet, retiring woman, the elder of the party: "The child is right, and we have been to blame. As the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to be quiet and attend to your work."
"You are not the oldest present," answered Sister Perpetua. "Sister Anne is older than you."
"No, indeed, I am not!" said Sister Anne, with some sharpness. "Sister Bridget is fully half a dozen years older than I am, are you not, sister?"
"More than that, I should say," replied Sister Bridget, tranquilly. (N. B. * She was very pretty and young looking, while Sister Anne was both plain and wrinkled.) "But you know as well as I, sister, that it is not age, but standing in the house, that settles such matters. Again, as the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to pursue your work in silence. Prayers and psalms and holy meditations are better fitted for people in our evil case, threatened not only with the death of our reverend mother, but with the loss of all things, than such laughing and gossip as has gone on for the last half hour. I take shame to myself, and thank the child for her reproof, though it might have been more gently spoken."
* N. B.—nota bene
"I beg your pardon, sister," said I.
She had spoken with a great deal of gravity, and feeling, and most of the sisters had the grace to look ashamed, only Sister Perpetua muttered under her breath, but so I heard her:
"Fine airs, to be sure. But you are not prioress just yet, and many things may happen."
I don't know what brought her to a religious house, I am sure, unless it was that her friends wished to get rid of her, which was the reason a great many nuns were professed in those days. I am very sure she never had any vocation for such a life, and she showed it after she got out.
By that time my faintness was gone, but I thought I would like to be alone, so I told Sister Bridget what mother assistant had said, and withdrew.