"For I forgot to tell you, Dame Benton is brought to bed of twins, after so long a time, and you never did see anything so delighted as Sister Barbara was with the babies. I don't suppose she ever saw one before in all her life."
"Well," said Jack, very much interested and desirous to bring Cicely back to the point.
"Oh! 'Well,' says Sister Barbara, 'I never took so much comfort in prayer and meditation in all my life before, not when I had hardly anything else to do.'"
"Anne didn't seem very much pleased at this, and says she, 'I always thought a religious life was one thing and a secular life another.'"
"'Ah, my dear daughter,' replies Sister Barbara, 'I have been thinking that perhaps we have been mistaken in that very thing, and that all lives may be religious lives—that of the family as well as that of the cloister.'"
"I believe she is right," said Jack with decision. "Certainly God set people in families long before there were any such things as convents, as far as I can find out, and I suppose He knew what was good for them."
"Well, well, my dear lad, these are matters too high for us," replied Cousin Cicely. "Anyhow I am glad Sister Barbara is so content, and I wish she might abide with us, for she is like sunshine in the house, so she is; and as kind and pleasant with me as an own sister, for all she is a born lady and we only simple folk. I only wish Anne would take pattern by her, for she is a kind of thorn in your father's side—that is the truth."
"I think Anne looks worse than ever," remarked Jack. "She has such a scared look. Does she continue her penances?"
"Oh, yes, and increases them every day. I never saw her so strict; and now she has taken to visiting the poor folk, she just wears herself to a shadow."
"Does she visit the poor folk?" asked Jack. "I should think that might cheer her up a little."