Lily was very much surprised; she had always supposed Cristina to be Italian born and bred. Then she was a Monegasque, after all?
A postern door opened, and Cristina motioned Lily to pass through into the courtyard round which the convent was built.
Everything up on the rock has to be on a small and rather confined scale, but even so it was a fine and spacious courtyard, and Lily was surprised to see that there were four huge blue pots, exactly similar to the two at La Solitude. Perhaps Cristina saw the surprise in the English girl’s face, for she said quickly, “These were presented, as well as the geraniums growing in them, by the Count to the White Sisters. There is a close connection between the Polda family and the White Sisters.”
“Yes, indeed,” chimed in the nun who had admitted them. “Our holy foundress was a Countess Polda.”
Lily could not help smiling at the image evoked. With the best will in the world it would have been impossible to associate the epithet “holy” with the woman she knew as Countess Polda!
The two visitors were shown straight into a small, lofty hall, of which the window overlooked the sea and the rugged coastline towards Nice. Just below the window was a narrow, terraced garden.
“I will inform the Mother Superior that you are here,” said the sister ceremoniously; and as soon as she had left them Cristina hurried across to the window. “It is down there,” she said, pointing to a path which ran along the top terrace, “that I used to play during Recreation!”
The door opened, and a nun dressed all in white, a commanding, almost a splendid, figure, who looked to Lily’s eyes as though she had stepped out of a mediæval pageant, walked in. Cristina curtsied, and the nun put out her hand and clasped that of the old woman.
“So this is your young English friend,” she said, and she fixed a pair of penetrating, dark eyes on Lily’s face.
“I have brought her to receive your blessing,” said Cristina, “and I hope to bring Beppo before many days are past.” She added, rather nervously, “Mademoiselle is a Protestant, but that, no doubt, is a misfortune which will in time be remedied.”