“You wonder why you should leave a trunk with me?” Nan persisted, ignoring Cis’s suggestion of the gift. “Because it looks so horridly final when you’ve taken everything with you; you may want to come home again. At least you might let me hope that you will, let me feel I had a link with you.”
“I won’t come back next winter, Nanny; I’ll push on farther if Beaconhite doesn’t appreciate me—or I appreciate it. I don’t say I’ll never come back, but I know I’m going to keep away a while,” declared Cis. “So there’s no telling what I could get on without. And as to that word ‘home’ you used, where’s my home? In those trunks! A girl like me, without kith nor kin, boarding or lodging, hasn’t a home. Of course, I’ll always call this old town home, because I was born here and grew up here, but that’s nonsense, when you come to think of it. You’re the only thing here to come back to; I don’t need to leave a trunk to hitch me up to you, small Person! So your silly Cicely takes all she owns with her. Say, Nan, why do you suppose they didn’t nickname me Silly, instead of Cis? Comes just as straight from Cicely!”
“Oh, dear Cis! You always make me feel as if you were a kite and the rope was slipping through my fingers! You’re the friendliest thing, yet you don’t care one bit for people—unless it is for me?” sighed Nan. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to Father Lennon? And—and—go to confession this afternoon before you start?”
Cis shook her head hard. “Not time for confession for me yet; not for quite a long while. I’ll turn up somewhere by Easter, maybe at Christmas! Don’t look bothered, good little Nan! I’m going to be honest whatever else I am. I often wonder if I’m honest to go at all. You don’t think God can like us to pretend, do you?” Cis turned unexpectedly serious.
“I think He likes us to hold on hard when we are tempted to let go, and that we can be honest in wanting to hold on, at least,” said Nan slowly. “I’m pretty sure this idea you have of being honest is dangerous. Isn’t it just as honest to receive the sacraments because you know you ought to, as because you happen to feel like it? And there’s more merit in it, so it is sure to earn the feeling for you after a while?”
Nan spoke hesitatingly; she stood in awe of Cis, of her cleverness, her reserves, and also her unreserve, which was likely at any time to shock Nan.
“Maybe, nice Nanny,” Cis assented lightly. “I’m so full of pep that I don’t crave anything that life can’t give, and I don’t think I’m a great sinner, honest! I’m pretty square; I tell the truth; I hate lowness; I don’t harm people, I even like to oil other people’s springs when the going’s hard. I don’t know exactly what religion does mean to me; I’ve got some, at least I’d never be anything but Catholic, but I can’t see why I’m not living a decent life, better than some people’s who are at confession every couple of weeks or so.”
“Of course, Cis, and you’re a peach; you know what I think of you, part of it, anyway. But that’s not all of it. I’m no good at explaining, but all that’s just this world,” Nan faltered; she could have made her meaning clearer, but she shrank from preaching to Cis.
“This world it is, Nancy Bell! Where else is our address? I’ve heard about it; you mean what they say in church about ‘natural virtues.’ Well, I’d like to know who created nature, what’s wrong with natural virtue? It’s a nice, natural thing to be jolly, and kindly, and not jealous, or hen-minded—hen-minded and snake-acting! And you’ve got to own up that some pious people are just as jealous and harsh as can be, wouldn’t deal half as decently with other folks as Cis, the Sinner! So that same Cis can’t feel she’s so awfully a sinner! As to saying good-bye to Father Lennon, why on earth should I bother him and myself, now I’m going away, when I never saw him to talk to him when I was here?” Cis flicked a scarf into Nan’s face, adding:
“Smile awhile, Nancy! I may be headed wrong, but I’m not dying, and perhaps I’ll brace up and turn saintly before Father Lennon—or someone else—comes to say good-bye to me for good and all!”