The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"And I have come to tell them to you before I tell any one else."

"Well?" said Mr. Castlemaine, wondering what was coming.

"I should like--I must have some occupation in life, you know?"

"Occupation? Well?"

"And I have not been long in making up my mind what it shall be. I shall join the Sisterhood."

"Join the what?"

"The Sisters at the Grey Nunnery, uncle."

Mr. Castlemaine pushed back his chair in angry astonishment when the sense of the words fully reached him. "The Sisters at the Grey Nunnery!" he indignantly cried. "Join those Grey women who lead such an idle, gossiping, meddling life, that I have no patience when I think of them! Never shall you do that, Mary Ursula!"

"It seems to me that you have always mistaken them, uncle," she said; "have done them wrong in your heart; They are noble women, and they are leading a noble life----"

"A petty, obscure life," he interrupted.