第89章 CHAPTER LXI.(2)

You are here to command the Virgins of the Lord, but among these Ihave no right to a place. I am a mother, although so young, and the Holy Scriptures tell me every day that Hagar, the kindly hearted, may not forsaken her darling Ishmael.

I happened to be with Madame de Mortemart when one of the aged sisters brought her this letter. On reading it she was much affected. I feigned ignorance, and asked her kindly what was the reason of her trouble. She wished to hide it; but I insisted, and at last persuaded her to let me see the note. I read it calmly and with reflection, and afterwards said to the Abbess:

"What! You, sister, whose distress and horror I witnessed when our stern parents shut you up in a cloister,--are you now going to impose like fetters upon a young and interesting person, who dreads them, and rejects them as once you rejected them?"Madame de Mortemart replied, "I was young then, and without experience, when I showed such childish repugnance as that of which you speak. At that age one knows nothing of religion nor of the eternal verities. Only the world, with its frivolous pleasures, is then before one's eyes; and the spectacle blinds our view, even our view of heaven. Later on Ideplored such resistance, which so grieved my family; and when I saw you at Court, brilliant and adored, I assure you, my dear Marquise, that this convent and its solitude seemed to me a thousand times more desirable than the habitation of kings.""You speak thus philosophically," I replied, "only because your lot happens to have undergone such a change. From a slave, you have become an absolute and sovereign mistress. The book of rules is in your hands;you turn over its leaves wherever you like; you open it at whatever page suits you; and if the book should chance to give you a severe rebuke, you never let others know this. Human nature was ever thus. No, no, madame;you can never make one believe that a religious life is in itself such an attractive one that you would gladly resume it if the dignities of your position as an abbess were suddenly wrested from you and given to some one else.""Well, well, if that is so," said the Abbess, reddening, "I am quite ready to send in my resignation, and so return you your liberality.""I don't ask you for an abbey which you got from the King," I rejoined, smiling; "but the favour, which I ask and solicit you can and ought to grant. Mademoiselle d'Amurande points out to you in formal and significant terms that she cannot enrol herself among the Virgins of the Lord, and that the gentle Hagar of Holy Writ may not forsake Ishmael.

Such a confession plainly hints at an attachment which religion cannot violate nor destroy, else our religion would be a barbarous one, and contrary to nature.