"Why, how should you know anything about it, child?" said Mother Prudentia, surprised.
"Lucy and I lived there before we came here," answered Amabel. "The moment reverend mother spoke the name, I remembered the place quite well. It stands on a hill, and one can see a great way. There are a good many rooms, and a flower garden, with fountains and a terrace. I can recollect that. But it is very much smaller than this house."
"So much the better. I never do like to think of these great empty halls and buildings, especially at night!" said Sister Agnes, as Mother Prudentia left us. "One never can guess who or what may be lurking in them."
"You had better not let Mother hear you say so, or she will be sending you from one end of them to the other!" remarked Sister Angela. "If I dreaded it as much as you do, I would force myself to do it just for a mortification."
To do something you particularly dislike, is a great point with some devout nuns; I have seen a sister ordered to pick up a spider and let it run over her face, only because she showed a disgust at the creature. This however, was in the former Mother Assistant's time; I don't think Mother Prudentia was much given to such performances.
I was naturally very much interested in the prospect of seeing again the house where we had lived on our first coming abroad. The name of Fleurs had awakened in my mind certain dim recollections, but it was as when one strives to recall a dream. I plied Amabel with questions, to most of which I received rather unsatisfactory answers, for though her reminiscences were clearer than mine, they were still those of a mere child.
In the excitement through which we had lately passed, and the prospect of a change of residence—not to mention our anxiety about dear Mother's health—we had almost forgotten that we had or were likely to have any other home than the convent. So that when one day in August, we were summoned from our task of splitting apricots to dry, to attend to the Superior, we thought of almost anything, rather than a message from England. I know my own mind was running on a very different subject, namely, thinking that I had gone out of bounds that very morning, having run down to the end of the orchard after a rare butterfly, and wondering whether Mother had seen me.
We found the dear lady lying back in her great chair, an unusual indulgence for her who usually sat up straight as an arrow. She looked thin and worn, and her hands were white and transparent like alabaster; but her wonderful eyes were as bright as ever, and she had a lovely color in her cheeks, which I in my ignorance, took for a sign of returning health. She held an open letter in her hand, and I fancied that she had been weeping.
We knelt and kissed her hand, and she gave us her blessing as usual. She then bade us to be seated on two stools, one on each side of her, and laid a hand on each of our heads.
"My dear children!" said she. "I have heard from Sir Julius Leighton."