The presence of the new Mistress of the Novices filled Beatrice with an awe she could not account for; and, without waiting to ask herself why, she fell on her knees before her.
‘It is well you have come back, my child,’ said Our Lady; ‘resume your dress, which I have worn for you; go in to the convent again, and do penance, and keep up the good name I have earned for you.’
With that Our Lady returned to the canvas; Beatrice resumed her habit, and strove so earnestly to form herself by the model of perfection Our Lady had set while wearing it, that in a few months she became a saint.
[Mr. Ralston gives a Russian story (pp. 249–50), in which St. Nicholas comes in person and serves a man who has been devout to his picture.]
[1] ‘La Monica Beatrice.’ ‘Monica,’ provincialism or vulgarism for ‘monaca,’ a nun. [↑]
[2] ‘Albagia,’ self-esteem, vanity. [↑]
[3] ‘Rotara,’ equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the ‘ruota,’ or ‘turniquet,’ through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door. [↑]
[4] ‘Fattore,’ an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs. [↑]
[5] ‘Suora’ is the received word for a ‘Sister’ in a convent. ‘Sister,’ the natural relationship, is ‘Sorella.’ [↑]