"And you are inclined now to live peaceably with the person in question?"
"O yes, ma'am," said Rotha. She smiled frankly in Mrs. Mowbray's face as she said it; and she was puzzled to know what made that lady's eyes swiftly fill with tears. They filled full. Rotha went back to her stereoscope.
"What have you there, my dear?"
"O this old abbey, Mrs. Mowbray; it is just a ruin, but it is so beautiful! Will you look?"
Mrs. Mowbray put the glass to her eye.
"It is a severe style—" she remarked.
"Is it?"
"And it was built at a severe time of religious strictness in the order to which it belonged. They were a colony from Clairvaux; and the prior of Clairvaux, Bernard, was the most remarkable man of his time; remarkable through his goodness. In all Europe there was not another man, crowned or uncrowned, who had the social and political power of that man. Yet he was a simple monk, and devoted to God's service."
"I do not know much about monks," Rotha remarked.
"You can know a good deal about them, if you will read that work of Montalembert on the monks of the Middle Ages. Make haste and learn to read French. You must know that first."