The Golden Dog [305]
to see him. They were kind in their cruelty. Poor Pierre! he thinks me still worthy of some regard." She commenced weeping afresh.
"He would fain have seen you, darling," said her aunt. "Your flight to the Convent--he knows what it means--overwhelms him with a new calamity."
"And yet it cannot be otherwise. I dare not place my hand in his now, for it would redden it! But it is sweet amid my affliction to know that Pierre has not forgotten me, that he does not hate me, nay, that he still loves me, although I abandon the world and him who to me was the light of it. Why would they not admit him?"
"Mere Migeon is as hard as she is just, Amelie. I think too she has no love for the Philiberts. Her nephew Varin has all the influence of a spoilt son over the Lady Superior."
Amelie scarcely regarded the last remark of her aunt, but repeated the words, "Hard and just! Yes, it is true, and hardness and justice are what I crave in my misery. The flintiest couch shall be to me a bed of down, the scantiest fare a royal feast, the hardest penance a life of pleasure. Mere Migeon cannot be more hard nor more just to me than I would be to myself."
"My poor Amelie! My poor Heloise!" repeated the lady, stroking their hair and kissing them both alternately; "be it as God wills. When it is dark every prospect lies hid in the darkness, but it is there all the same, though we see it not; but when the day returns everything is revealed. We see naught before us now but the image of our Lady of Grand Pouvoir illumined by the lamp of Repentigny, but the sun of righteousness will yet arise with healing on his wings for us all! But oh, my children, let nothing be done hastily, rashly, or unbecoming the daughters of our honorable house."
CHAPTER LIII.
"LOVELY IN DEATH THE BEAUTEOUS RUIN LAY."
The chant of vespers had long ceased. The Angelus had rung its last summons to invoke a blessing upon life and death at the close of the day. The quiet nuns filed off from their frugal meal in the long refectory and betook themselves to the community or to their peaceful cells. The troop of children in their charge had been sent with prayer to their little couches in the dormitory, sacred to sleep and happy dreams.
Candles flickered through the long passages as veiled figures slowly and noiselessly passed towards the chapel to their private devotions. Scarcely a footfall reached the ear, nor sound of any kind, except the sweet voice of Mere Madelaine de St. Borgia. Like the flow of a full stream in the still moonlight, she sang her canticle of praise to the guardian of the house, before she retired to rest:
"Ave, Joseph! Fili David juste! Vir Mariae de qua natus est Jesus!"
Lady de Tilly sat listening as she held the hands of her two nieces, thinking how merciless was Fate, and half rebelling in her mind against the working of Providence. The sweet song of Mere St. Borgia fell like soft rain upon her hard thoughts, and instilled a spirit of resignation amid the darkness, as she repeated the words, "Ave, Joseph!" She fought bitterly in her soul against giving up her two lambs, as she called them, to the cold, scant life of the cloister, while her judgment saw but too plainly that naught else seemed left to their crushed and broken spirits. But she neither suggested their withdrawal from the Convent, nor encouraged them to remain.
In her secret thought, the Lady de Tilly regarded the cloister as a blessed refuge for the broken-hearted, a rest for the weary and overladen with earthly troubles, a living grave, which such may covet and not sin; but the young, the joyous, the beautiful, and all capable of making the world fairer and better, she would inexorably shut out. Christ calls not these from the earthly paradise; but the afflicted, the disappointed, the despairing, they who have fallen helplessly down in the journey of life, and are of no further use in this world, these he calls by their names and comforts them. But for those rare souls who are too cold for aught but spiritual joys,
"He would fain have seen you, darling," said her aunt. "Your flight to the Convent--he knows what it means--overwhelms him with a new calamity."
"And yet it cannot be otherwise. I dare not place my hand in his now, for it would redden it! But it is sweet amid my affliction to know that Pierre has not forgotten me, that he does not hate me, nay, that he still loves me, although I abandon the world and him who to me was the light of it. Why would they not admit him?"
"Mere Migeon is as hard as she is just, Amelie. I think too she has no love for the Philiberts. Her nephew Varin has all the influence of a spoilt son over the Lady Superior."
Amelie scarcely regarded the last remark of her aunt, but repeated the words, "Hard and just! Yes, it is true, and hardness and justice are what I crave in my misery. The flintiest couch shall be to me a bed of down, the scantiest fare a royal feast, the hardest penance a life of pleasure. Mere Migeon cannot be more hard nor more just to me than I would be to myself."
"My poor Amelie! My poor Heloise!" repeated the lady, stroking their hair and kissing them both alternately; "be it as God wills. When it is dark every prospect lies hid in the darkness, but it is there all the same, though we see it not; but when the day returns everything is revealed. We see naught before us now but the image of our Lady of Grand Pouvoir illumined by the lamp of Repentigny, but the sun of righteousness will yet arise with healing on his wings for us all! But oh, my children, let nothing be done hastily, rashly, or unbecoming the daughters of our honorable house."
CHAPTER LIII.
"LOVELY IN DEATH THE BEAUTEOUS RUIN LAY."
The chant of vespers had long ceased. The Angelus had rung its last summons to invoke a blessing upon life and death at the close of the day. The quiet nuns filed off from their frugal meal in the long refectory and betook themselves to the community or to their peaceful cells. The troop of children in their charge had been sent with prayer to their little couches in the dormitory, sacred to sleep and happy dreams.
Candles flickered through the long passages as veiled figures slowly and noiselessly passed towards the chapel to their private devotions. Scarcely a footfall reached the ear, nor sound of any kind, except the sweet voice of Mere Madelaine de St. Borgia. Like the flow of a full stream in the still moonlight, she sang her canticle of praise to the guardian of the house, before she retired to rest:
"Ave, Joseph! Fili David juste! Vir Mariae de qua natus est Jesus!"
Lady de Tilly sat listening as she held the hands of her two nieces, thinking how merciless was Fate, and half rebelling in her mind against the working of Providence. The sweet song of Mere St. Borgia fell like soft rain upon her hard thoughts, and instilled a spirit of resignation amid the darkness, as she repeated the words, "Ave, Joseph!" She fought bitterly in her soul against giving up her two lambs, as she called them, to the cold, scant life of the cloister, while her judgment saw but too plainly that naught else seemed left to their crushed and broken spirits. But she neither suggested their withdrawal from the Convent, nor encouraged them to remain.
In her secret thought, the Lady de Tilly regarded the cloister as a blessed refuge for the broken-hearted, a rest for the weary and overladen with earthly troubles, a living grave, which such may covet and not sin; but the young, the joyous, the beautiful, and all capable of making the world fairer and better, she would inexorably shut out. Christ calls not these from the earthly paradise; but the afflicted, the disappointed, the despairing, they who have fallen helplessly down in the journey of life, and are of no further use in this world, these he calls by their names and comforts them. But for those rare souls who are too cold for aught but spiritual joys,