"I believe Mother Superior has written to him—" answered Mother Prudentia—with a scared look, such as she always wore when she had been betrayed into some indiscretion greater than usual. "Oh! My unlucky tongue—when shall I ever learn to rule it? However, I know Mother Superior means to tell you all about it before long—only if she does you know—" and the good Mother looked rather wistfully at me.
"I understand, dear Mother—" said I, seeing that she wished to caution me against displaying any previous knowledge of what the Superior had to tell me.
In effect, it was only a few days before Mother Superior called Amabel and myself into her room and informed us that she had heard from Sir Julius Leighton concerning us, and that he would probably send for us in a short time. She gave us a great deal of excellent advice, and particularly enjoined it upon us to preserve our faith intact, in the land of heretics to which we were going.
"Your father, my Aimeè, is a good Catholic, or so I understand!" said she. "But your step-mother belongs to the so-called reformed religion, as do your father's sisters; you will therefore need to exercise great firmness and caution."
I cannot tell all the dear Mother said to us, only she specially warned us against reading heretical books. She gave us each a reliquary containing a precious relic. Mine was a bit of the veil of St. Agnes in a handsome gold and enameled setting. I have it still. She then addressed herself to me, telling me what it had never entered my head to think of before—namely, that I was inferior in rank to Amabel, and must probably be content to take a lower place. (French people cannot understand that commoners have any rank at all, more than French bourgeois.) While I was trying to take in and understand this new idea, Amabel spoke in her gentle decided voice.
"I shall never be separated from Lucy!" said she firmly. "Where she goes, I will go."
"That will be as your father says, my child!" answered dear Mother, rather reprovingly. "I hope indeed that you may continue united as you have been, but remember your father's will is your law, so long as he does not command anything contrary to our Holy Faith."
Amabel did not reply, but she shut her lips as she was used to do, when she had made up her mind. Mother Superior gave us some more words of advice and then dismissed us with her blessing.
We went away in silence, till we reached our old place of retirement in the Oratory, and then Amabel threw her arms round my neck, and burst into a passionate flood of tears—an unusual thing for her, for she seldom cried.
"You won't desert me, will you Lucy!" she sobbed. "It is bad enough to leave this dear home and all the Mothers and Sisters for a strange land, but if I must lose you—"