The priest stopped short, with no ceremony of greeting, and regarded her a moment, while she waited for him to speak.
The scrutiny satisfied him apparently.
“You did well to come back here,” he said then, and made a motion to enter. She stood aside for him to pass, and followed him into the little parlor which she had spent all the morning in preparing for him. An arm-chair had been improvised out of a barrel, some pillows, and a shawl, the rude fireplace was filled with green, and there were dishes of flowers about.
Her visitor did not appear to notice these simple efforts to do him honor. Almost before seating himself, he began to speak of what had brought him there.
“Now, my child, though I have time enough to say and hear all that [pg 343] is necessary, though it should take a week, I have no time to waste. Tell me the meaning of your letter?”
No time for gradual approach, for timid intimations, or delicate reserves till, warming with the subject, she could show plainly all that was in her heart. She must make the “epic plunge” without delay. Stimulated by the necessity, Bessie called up her wits and her courage, and, without being aware of it, told everything in a few words.
When she paused and expected him to question her, to her surprise he seemed already to know the whole. And, to her still greater pleasure, those points on which she had touched lightly, fearing that they might seem trivial in his eyes, he spoke of with sympathy.
“It is those little attentions and kindnesses which sweeten human life, my child, and help to sustain us under its heavier trials,” he said.
Bessie lifted her grateful, tearful eyes, and thanked him with a sad smile.
“And now,” he continued, “I want you to go to confession.”