“Now you’re here, I shall ask you, I think, to whip me.”
“Oh, no....”
“Bad dear Little-One. Dear meek soul,” Sister Ursula softly laughed.
“This maddening cheering,” Laura breathed, rolling tormented eyes about her.
A crucifix, a text: I would lay Pansies at Jesus’ Feet, two fresh eggs in a blue paper bag, some ends of string, a breviary, and a birch, were the chamber’s individual, if meagre, contents.
“You used not to have that text, Ursula,” Laura observed, her attention arrested by the preparation of a Cinematograph Company on the parapet of the Cathedral.
The Church had much need indeed of Reformation! The Times were incredibly low: A new crusade ... she ruminated, revolted at the sight of an old man holding dizzily to a stone-winged angel, with a wine-flask at his lips.
“Come, dear, won’t you assist me now to mortify my senses?” Sister Ursula cajoled.
“No, really, no—!—!—!”
“Quite lightly: For I was scourged, by Sister Agnes, but yesterday, with a heavy bunch of keys, head downwards, hanging from a bar.”