Such being the dismal state of things, Francis slyly requested her to leave the seven deadly sins in peace, and go to her small offences: for he argued, shrewdly enough, that, since her sins were peccadilloes, perhaps some of her peccadilloes might turn out to be sins.
"Small!" cried the culprit, turning red,—"they are none of them small."
I really think she was jealous of her reputation as a sinner of high degree.
However, she complied, and, putting up her mouth, murmured a miscellaneous confession without end. The accents were soft and musical, like a babbling brook; and the sins, such as they were, poor things, rippled on in endless rotation.
Now nothing tends more to repose than a purling brook; and ere long something sonorous let the fair culprit know she had lulled her confessor asleep.
She stopped, indignant. But at that he instantly awoke, (sublatâ causâ, tollitur effectus,) and addressed her thus, with sudden dignity,—
"My daughter, you will fast on Monday next, and say two Aves and a Credo. Absolvo te."
"And now," said he, "as I am a practical man, let us get back from the imaginary world into the real. Speak to me at present as your director; and mind, you must be serious now, and call things by their right names."
Upon this Kate took a seat, and told her story, and showed him the difficulty she was in.
She then reminded him, that, notwithstanding her unfortunate itch for the seven deadly sins, she was a good Catholic, a zealous daughter of the Church; and she let him know her desire to retire from both lovers into a convent, and so, freed from the world and its temptations, yield up her soul entire to celestial peace and divine contemplation.