On one of these days, the superior received a letter from the bishop, which was speedily communicated to the whole family. His greatness wrote that having had our title and charter investigated by the proper authorities, he had discovered that not only was our community fully entitled to all the land and property that it held, but that it had an undoubted right to some hundreds of acres of very fertile meadow land, lying half a mile away, and at present occupied by the Count de Crequi.
"So we shall get back all that beautiful pasture where the grass grows so early," said Sister Eustachie, the oldest person in the house. "I remember, children, when ye had twenty-five cows in that meadow. Such butter and cheese as we made—but we had a great family then. Well, I hope I may see those lands restored to our holy patrimony."
"I would like to hope so too, sister, but I doubt it!" said Mother Prudentia. "The wolf of Crequi does not let go his prey so easily. For myself, I shall be thankful if we are left to go quietly on our way, as we are doing at present."
I have never said anything about our priest and confessor. He was a middle-aged man, looking old from his white hair, but very hale and active. He lived by himself in a little house in the orchard, from which a sort of arbor, covered with vines, led to the church. He was a kind-hearted, easy-going man, very charitable and self-denying, save in the matter of snuff, of which he took a great deal. He was very fond of his garden, in which he worked early and late.
Amabel and I liked him because he spoke English very well, having once been confessor to a noble family in England. Only for him, I don't know but we should have forgotten our mother tongue entirely; but he used to exercise us in it, making us read to him sometimes, in an English Thomas-à-Kempis he had, sometimes in an English translation from the Vulgate. Oh! How I used to wish I could get that book into my own hands; but the good father guarded it jealously, not allowing us even to turn over a leaf for ourselves. We used to read Psalms and bits of the Gospels, and Old Testament stories, which he picked out for us.
I remember reading in this way about the widow's son of Nain. When I had finished, the priest paused a moment, and then said, reverently:
"My Lucy, do you think of what you read?"
"Yes, my father; I think of it a great deal," I answered, which was quite true.
"But do you make it real to you? Think, for instance, about this story which we have just finished. Think how that poor mother must have dreaded the return to her lonely house; the sitting down to her lonely table, and living on day after day without her son."
"And then how different it all was from what she expected!" said Amabel, musingly. "I should think she would hardly have known how to believe it. She must have felt as if his sickness and death were all a dream."