Miss Hallet led the Sister upstairs, undid Jane's locked drawer with the blacksmith's borrowed key, and exhibited its contents as an additional aggravation in her cup of bitterness. Sister Mildred, a lover of fine work, could not avoid expressing admiration, as she took up the things one by one.
"Why, they are beautiful!" she cried. "Look at the quality of the lace and cambric! No gentleman's child could have better things provided than these. Poor Jane! she must have known well, then, what was coming. And such sewing! She learnt that from us!"
"Never, so long as she lives, shall she darken my doors again," was the severe answer. "You must fancy what an awful shock it was to me, Sister Mildred, when I opened this drawer last evening; and what I said to Jane on her entrance, I really cannot recall. I was out of my mind. Our family has been reduced lower and lower by ill-fortune; but never yet by disgrace."
"I'm sure I can't understand it," returned the puzzled Sister. "Jane was the very last girl I could have feared for. Well, well, it cannot be mended now. We will keep her until she is about again, Miss Hallet."
"I should put her outside the Nunnery gate to-day!" came the stern reply.
"That would kill her," said Sister Mildred, shaking her head in compassion. "And the destroying of her body would not save her soul. The greater the sin, the greater, remember, was the mercy of our Lord and Master."
"She can never hold up her head in this world again. And for myself, as I say, I would far rather be dead than live."
"She won't hold it up as she has held it: it is not to be expected," assented Sister Mildred with an emphatic nod. "But--well--we must see what can be done with her when she's better. Will you come to see her, Miss Hallet?"
"I come to see her!" repeated the indignant relative, feeling the proposal as nothing less than an outrage. "I would not come to see her if she lay dying. Unless it were to reproach her with her shame."
"You are all hardness now," said indulgent Sister Mildred, "and perhaps I should be in your place: I know what a bitter blow it is. But the anguish will subside. Time heals the worst sores: and, the more we are weaned from this world, the nearer we draw to Heaven."