“She did not answer it.”
“Let us see about it. What did you ask her?”
“I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first question that I came across.”
“And what was the question?”
“It was, ‘What happened after that?’”
It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:—
“How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person!”
It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:—
“Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.
“Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.