The foster-sisters

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"They are at service in the church," said I, as a clock on the mantel-piece struck seven. "Does it not seem strange that we may sit up till nine o'clock if we choose."

"I could not I am sure, I am too sleepy," answered Amabel. "It seems as though I had lived a hundred years since morning. Good-night, Lucy."

The novelty of my position and the strange and to me alarming sounds in the street kept me awake for two hours—a very long time to lie awake at seventeen. I thought over all my past life, and wondered what the future would be like. I wasted a good deal of conjecture upon my probably position at Highbeck Hall—such was the name of the place where Amabel's aunt lived. I thought of the story of Mary Lowther which we had heard in the morning, and wondered—rather scared at myself for doing so—whether Protestants were after all such bad people, and whether bringing up motherless children, or even children of one's own, was not as high a vocation as building oneself up in a hole in the wall, and living in rags and dirt for twenty years.

Finally I wondered myself to sleep, and did not wake till Mrs. Thorpe called me in the morning. What a wonderful thing it was to have a mirror to dress by. I was positively bewildered by it at first, and found I could manage better in the old way.

We saw very little of Toulon. There was some disturbance in the town, owing, I believe, to the escape of some galley slaves, which made it unpleasant to be in the streets. I know there was a great marching to and fro of soldiers, and once or twice the firing of guns.

We went out once, however, under the escort of Captain Lowther, to buy some new clothes, and see some sights. We had new frocks alike of dark silk, which were quite superb in our eyes, and thick grey woolen frocks, and warm cloaks, which Mrs. Thorpe said we should need on the voyage, since it was always cold at sea.

On our return from this expedition, a great surprise befell us. We found Father Brousseau waiting for us, and learned that he was to go to England in the same ship with us. He informed us that a relative in the north of England had left him a small property, and beside that, he wished to visit the noble family where he had once been confessor, and perhaps he might remain with them.

He has since told me that his superiors that it as well for him to leave France for a time, since he had drawn upon himself the enmity of a noble and powerful family, who would have no scruple in revenging themselves even on a priest. It was known or guessed that he had been the means of discovering that plot for sacking the convent which had so nearly succeeded, and his life, it was said, had already been threatened by some of the Count de Crequi's family.

Those were terribly lawless times in France. The country was full of soldiers disbanded or deserted after the peace, ready to beg, rob, or murder, as might suit their purpose best, and prepared for any desperate undertaking which promised plunder. The great nobles oppressed their tenants and their weaker neighbors with impunity, and revelled in all sorts of luxury, while the same tenants ate boiled grass and nettles, or died of starvation at their gates. They say people are making an effort now to set things straight, but from all I hear, not much good is likely to come of it. Folks who have been crushed down to the level of brute beasts are pretty likely to act like wild beasts when once they get loose.

We sailed from Toulon in the first days of August, and arrived in Newcastle in about ten or twelve days. We had a stormy passage, and Amabel and I were very sick a great deal of the time, so that Mrs. Thorpe had her hands full with waiting on us. Father Brousseau was not much better than we, but he made a heroic effort to crawl upon deck every day that the captain would allow him to be there, and, so Mrs. Thorpe averred, gave wonderfully little trouble for a man.