"Those things are not of much consequence!" answered Amabel. "For aught I know, one may as well eat at one time as another. But we can take certain hours for working for the poor, and others for profitable reading and so on. That would disturb nobody; and I am sure we should accomplish a great deal more, and feel better ourselves. Suppose we make a set of clothes for that poor little lame girl we went to see yesterday. It will soon be cold weather, and she will need a warm gown and woolen hose. Did you not see how thin her things were, and how carefully mended?"
I agreed that it would be a very good plan, and then we sat a few minutes in silence.
"There is one thing that puzzles me!" said I presently. "Every one says, that the religious life is the highest, and yet it is plain that only a few people out of all the world can enter it; because, as you say, the work of the world would come to a stand still, if nobody married and brought up children, and were shop-keepers and lawyers, and so on. But yet, it seems as if every one ought to serve God in the best possible way; and if the religious life is the best way, then every one ought to be religious. I do not understand it."
"Every one has not a vocation!" said Amabel.
"But if a vocation pleases God most, then every one ought to have it!" I persisted.
"I have heard Mother Prudentia say, that the religious were like the cream that rises to the top of the milk!" said Amabel. "The skimmed milk may have its uses too."
"The skimmed milk may have its uses, but I don't believe it is the best for the children!" I returned. "And that is what they get, poor things, if all the best women are to become nuns, and leave only the second-rate ones to become mothers and bring up the little ones."
"Now you are reasoning, and using your own private judgment!" said Amabel, a little severely—"And you know the church forbids that."
I did not answer but I thought all the more. How was I to help using my private judgment, so long as I was in a world full of things to be judged? And even if I gave up in everything to the church, was it not because my private judgment told me that was the right way? It was a very puzzling business, and the worst was, that having begun to think, I could not stop.
"There!" said Amabel, rising as the clock struck eight. "Now we can go to Mrs. Thorpe. Come, Lucy!"