Chapter III: Part 3

Then the Archbishop stepped out of the boat, and there was a timid scramble to his side. The barriers were down. He had knocked at our hearts in the Devil's name, and we had flung them wide. The return to the convent was like a rout;--little girls wedging their way in among big girls, the Second Cours contesting every step of the path with the First Cours, the most insignificant children lifted suddenly to prominence and distinction. I was too shy to do more than move restlessly on the outskirts of the crowd; but I saw Tony conversing affably with the Archbishop (and looking as gentle as she was intelligent), and Viola Milton kissing his ring with the assurance of an infant Aloysius. When he bade us good-by, we shouted and waved our handkerchiefs until he was out of sight. He turned at the end of the avenue, and waved his in a last friendly salutation. That was very long ago. I trust that in Paradise the Holy Innocents are now bearing him company, for I truly believe his soul would weary of the society of grown-up saints.

And our _congé_ was only ten days off. This thought was left to gild our waking hours. We--Elizabeth, Marie, Tony, Lilly, Emily, and I--resolved ourselves immediately into a committee of ways and means, and voted all the money in the treasury for supplies. It was not much, but, if well laid out, it would purchase sweets enough to insure a midnight pang. The privilege of buying so much as a stick of candy was one rigidly reserved for holidays. "Mary" did our shopping for us. Mary was a hybrid, a sort of uncloistered nun. Her out-of-date bonnet, worn instead of a lay sister's close white cap, proclaimed her as one free to come and go; and her mission in life was to transact outside business, to buy whatever was necessary or permitted. The lay sisters did the work of the convent; Mary ministered to its needs. We wrote down for her a list of delicacies.

One dozen oranges.

One box of figs.

One pound of caramels,--which were dear.

Two pounds of walnut taffy.

Three pounds of cinnamon bun.

A fair allowance, I surmise, for six well-fed little girls.

"I tell you what I'll do," said Marie, in an excess of generosity. "I'll save up my wine, if you'll lend me bottles to put it in."

We felt this to be noble. For some mysterious reason (she was never known to be ill), Marie was sent every morning at eleven o'clock to the infirmary; and at that unconvivial hour drank a solitary glass of wine. It was port, I believe, or Burgundy,--I am not sure which, and I pray Heaven I may never taste its like again. Now, provided with half a dozen empty bottles, which had erstwhile held tooth-wash and cologne, she undertook to elude the infirmarian's eye, and to decant her wine into these receptacles, instead of putting it where it was due. How she managed this we never knew (it would have seemed difficult to a prestidigitator), but Marie was a child of resources, second only to Tony in every baleful art.

Clever though we deemed her, however, clever though we sometimes deemed ourselves, there was one in the school, younger, yet far more acute than any of us. Thursday was visitors' day, and Lilly's brother came to see her. After he had gone, Lilly joined us in the avenue, looking perturbed and mysterious.

"I want to tell you something," she said lamely. "Viola has got some cigarettes. Jack gave them to her."

Cigarettes! Dynamite could not have sounded more overwhelming. Cigarettes, and in Viola Milton's keeping! Never had a whiff of tobacco defiled the convent air. Never had the thought of such unbridled license entered into any heart. And Viola was ten years old.

"I know what that means," said Tony sharply. "She wants to come with us on the _congé_."

Lilly nodded. It was plain that Viola, having possessed herself of a heavy bribe, had persuaded her older sister to open negotiations.

"Well, we won't have her," cried Tony vehemently. "Not if she has all the cigarettes in Christendom. Why on earth, Lilly, didn't you ask your brother for them yourself?"

"I never thought of such a thing," pleaded Lilly. "I never even heard her do it."

"Well, we won't have Viola, and you may go and tell her so," repeated Tony with mounting wrath. "Go and tell her so right off. We won't have a child of ten tagging round with us all day."

"Agnes is only eleven," said Lilly.

"How many cigarettes has she got?" It was Elizabeth who asked this pertinent question.

"I don't know. Jack gave her all he had."

"It doesn't make any difference how many she has. I won't have her," flamed Tony.

At this assertive "I," Elizabeth lifted her head. Her light blue eyes met Tony's sparkling brown ones. It was not the first time the two children had measured their forces. "We'll see, anyhow, what Viola's got," said Elizabeth calmly.

Lilly, being despatched to make inquiries, returned in two minutes with her little sister by her side. Viola was a bony child, all eyes and teeth, as ugly as Lilly was beautiful. Her sombre glance was riveted wistfully upon Elizabeth's face. She was too wise to weaken her cause with words, but held out eleven little white objects, at which we looked enviously.

"Seven from eleven leaves four," murmured Emily.

"I don't want any," said Viola, who was bidding high. She would have bartered her immortal soul to gain her point.

"And I don't want more than one," said Lilly. "That will leave two apiece for the rest of you."

"Well?" asked Elizabeth, looking round the circle.

"Oh, do let's have them!" I urged, dazzled by a sudden vision of debauchery. "They'll be just the thing to go with the wine."

They were _just_ the thing. We found this out later on.

"Oh, yes, let's have them," said Marie, who felt the responsibilities of a hostess.

"Let's," said Emily, our silent member.

"I won't!" asseverated Tony, battling heroically for a lost cause. "I won't have anything to do with the treat, if you let Viola in."

"Then don't!" retorted Elizabeth, now sure of victory, and scornful of further dispute.

Tony turned her back upon her venal friends, and marched off to another group of girls. There was no great novelty about this proceeding, but the imminence of the _congé_ lent it an unwonted seriousness.

"Don't you suppose she'll play _cache cache_ with us?" asked Marie somewhat ruefully, and well aware of what we should lose if she did not.

"Of course she will," said Elizabeth, "because she can't play without us."

And Elizabeth was right. Before the first of June, Tony had "come round;" being persuaded to this condescension by Lilly the peacemaker. Every cluster of friends should look to it that there is one absolutely sweet-tempered person in the group. But one is enough.

The first glorious thing about a _congé_ was that we got up at seven instead of at quarter-past six, and the next was that we began to talk before we were out of our beds. Breakfast was so hilarious that only the fear of wasting our precious hours ever dragged us from the refectory, and up into the schoolroom, to prepare for the special feature of the day, _cache cache_. We never played _cache cache_ except upon a holiday, which was why it seemed such a thrilling and wonderful game. No indulgence was likely to lose its value for us through unwarranted repetition. Two captains were chosen by acclamation, and they in turn elected their girls, picking them out alternately, one by one, until the whole Second Cours was divided into two bands of about twenty each. One band remained shut up in a music room (which was goal) for half an hour, while the other betook itself to the most secret and inaccessible spot that could be thought of as a hiding place. The captain might stay with her band, and direct its action, or she might be hidden separately; but no one except the captain was permitted to stray from the ranks for purposes of reconnoitring. The same rule held good for the searching party. The captain alone might play the scout. The rest were obliged to hold together. The capture of the hidden captain counted as half the game. The capture of the hidden band, before it could reach its goal, counted as the other half of the game. Thus the hiders were forced either to dispense with the invaluable services of their leader, or to risk the loss of the whole game, if she were surprised in their company. So much, indeed, depended upon the leader's tactics, and so keen was our thirst for victory, that the girl who saved the day for herself and for her comrades was held in higher esteem than the girl who came out ahead in the periodical blistering of examinations. College valuations are, perhaps, not so absolutely modern as they seem.

Given an area of over a hundred acres, with woods and orchards, with a deep ravine choked with tangled underbrush for concealment, and with wide lawns for an open run,--and _cache cache_ becomes, or at least it became for us, a glorious and satisfying sport. To crouch breathless in the "poisonous valley" (there was a touch of poetry in all our nomenclature), to skirt cautiously the marshy ground of La Salette (named after the miraculous spring of Dauphiné), to crawl on one's stomach behind half a mile of inadequate hedge, to make a wild dash for goal within full view of the pursuing party,--these things supplied all the trepidation and fatigue, all the opportunities for generalship, and all the openings for dispute, that reasonable children could demand. We hardly needed the additional excitement provided by Eloise Didier's slipping into the marsh, and being fished out, a compact cake of mud; or by Tony's impiously hiding in the organ loft of the chapel, and being caught red-handed by Madame Duncan,--a nun whom, thank Heaven! it was possible, though difficult, to cajole.

We played all morning and all afternoon, played until our strength and our spirits were alike exhausted; and then, when the shadows began to lengthen, and our vivacity to wane, we made ready for the mad carousal which was to close our day. A basement music room, as remote as possible from any chance of inspection, was chosen as the scene of revelry. It was not a cheerful spot; but it appeared reasonably safe. Hither we transported our feast, which, spread out upon a piano, presented a formidable appearance, and restored us to gayety and good humour. The advantage of childhood over riper years is its blessed slowness to recognize a failure. If a thing starts out to be a treat, why, it _is_ a treat, and that's the end of it. The cinnamon bun was certainly stale (Mary had, it was plain, consulted her own convenience as to the day of its purchase), but Heaven forbid that we should balk at staleness. Oranges and caramels, figs and walnut taffy present, to the thinking mind, an inharmonious combination; but that was a point on which we were to be subsequently enlightened. As for Marie's wine, it can be readily imagined what _it_ was like, after lying around for a warm May week in imperfectly corked tooth-wash bottles. I can only say that no medicine it had been my lot to taste was ever half so nasty; yet those were days when all drugs were of uncompromising bitterness. An effete civilization had not then devised gelatine capsules to defraud the palate of its pain.

We ate everything, cake, fruit, and candy; we drank the wine (heroic young souls!), and, trembling with excitement, we lit the cigarettes,--a more difficult matter than we had imagined. I had not waited until this point to dree my weird. Excessive fatigue is but an indifferent preparation for unwonted indulgence; and I was a sickly child, to whom only the simplicity and regularity of school life lent a semblance of health. Ominous sensations were warning me of my deadly peril; but I held straight on. Suddenly Marie, who had been smoking with silent fortitude, said sweetly:

"It's a shame Viola shouldn't have one of her own cigarettes. I'll give her my second."

"She can have one of mine, too," said Emily.

"Thank you," returned Viola hastily. "I don't want any. I gave them to you."

"Oh, do try one!" urged Marie.

"Yes, do!" said Tony sardonically. "Do try one, Viola. They are anxious enough to get rid of them."

She flung this taunt at the crowd, but her eye met mine with a challenge I would not evade. "I want my second one," I said.

Valour met valour. "So do I," smiled Tony.

From this point, my recollections are vague. We talked about Madame Davide, and whether she really did not understand English, or only pretended not to,--a point which had never been satisfactorily settled. We talked about Madame Bouron, and her methods (which we deemed unworthy) of finding out all she knew. I added little to the sprightliness of the conversation, and after a while I slipped away. On the stairs a kindly fate threw me into the arms of Sister O'Neil, who had charge of the vestry, and who was carrying piles of clean linen to the dormitories. She was a friendly soul (nearly all the lay sisters were good to us), and she took possession of me then and there. When I was safe in bed,--collapsed but comforted,--she sprinkled me with holy water, and tucked the light covers carefully around me. "Lie quiet now," she said. "I'll go tell Madame Rayburn where you are, and that there was no time to ask leave of anybody."

I did lie very quiet, and, after a while, fell into a doze, from which the sound of footsteps woke me. Some one was standing at the foot of my bed. It was Tony. She looked a trifle more sallow than usual, but was grinning cheerfully. "I'm better now," she said.

The delicate emphasis on the _now_ was like a condensed epic. "So am I," I murmured confidentially.

Tony disappeared, and in a few minutes was back again, comfortably attired in a dressing gown and slippers. She perched herself on the foot of my bed. "Hasn't it been a perfect _congé_?" she sighed happily. (Oh, blessed memory of youth!) "If you'd seen Madame Duncan, though, when I came stealing out of the chapel,--without a veil, too. 'What does this mean, Tony?' she said. 'It isn't possible that'"--

There was an abrupt pause. "Well?" I asked expectantly, though I had heard it all several times already; but Tony's eyes were fixed on the little pile of clean linen lying on my chair.

"Oh! I say," she cried, and there was a joyous ring in her voice. "Here's our chance. Let's change all the girls' washes."

I gazed at her with heartfelt admiration. To have passed recently through so severe a crisis,--a crisis which had reduced me to nothingness; and yet to be able instantly to think of such a charming thing to do. Not for the first time, I felt proud of Tony's friendship. Her resourcefulness compelled my homage. Had we been living in one of Mr. James's novels, I should have called her "great" and "wonderful."

"Get up and help," said Tony.

I stumbled out of bed, and into my slippers. My head felt curiously light when I lifted it from my pillow, and I had to catch hold of my curtain rod for support. The dormitory floor heaved up and down. Tony was already at work, carrying the linen from one side of the room to the other, and I staggered weakly after her. There were thirty beds, so it took us some time to accomplish our mission; but "The labour we delight in physicks pain;" and it was with a happy heart, and a sense of exalted satisfaction, that I saw the last pile safe in the wrong alcove, and crawled back between my sheets.--"Something attempted, something done, to earn a night's repose." Tony sat on my bed, and we talked confidentially until we heard the girls coming upstairs. Then she fled, and I awaited developments.

They entered more noisily than was their wont. The law ruled that a _congé_ came to an end with night prayers, after which no word might be spoken; but it was hard to control children who had been demoralized by a long day of liberty. Moreover, the "Seven Dolours" dormitory was ever the most turbulent of the three; its inmates lacking the docility of the very little girls, and the equanimity of the big ones. They were all at what is called the troublesome age. There was a note of anxiety in Madame Chapelle's voice, as she hushed down some incipient commotion.

"I must have perfect silence in the dormitory," she said. "You have talked all day; now you must go quietly to bed. Do you hear me, children? Silence!"

There was a lull, and then--I knew it must soon come--a voice from the far end of the room. "I have thirty-seven's clothes" (everything was marked with our school numbers), "instead of mine."

"Mary Aylmer, be quiet!" commanded Madame Chapelle.

"But, Madame, I tell you truly, I have thirty-seven's clothes. Who is thirty-seven?"

"I am," cried another voice,--Eloise Didier's. "But I haven't got your clothes, Mary Aylmer. I've got Alice Campbell's. Here, Alice,--twenty-two,--come take your things."

"Who is thirty-three? Ruffled night-gown with two buttons off. Oh, shame!" sang out Marie jubilantly.

"Children, will you be silent!" said Madame Chapelle, angry and bewildered. "What do you mean by such behaviour?"

"Forty-two's stockings want darning," said a reproachful voice. It was very probable, for I was forty-two.

"So do thirty-eight's."

"Adelaide H. McC. Harrison," Elizabeth read slowly, and with painstaking precision. "Haven't you any more initials, Adelaide, you could have put on your underclothes?"

"Look again, Elizabeth. Surely there's a coronet somewhere?" interposed Eloise Didier sardonically. Adelaide was not popular in our community.

"Three coronets, a sceptre, and a globe," said Elizabeth.

"Children," began Madame Chapelle; but her voice was lost in the scurrying of feet, as girl after girl darted across the polished floor to claim her possessions, or to rid herself of some one else's. They were, I well knew, devoutly grateful for this benign confusion, and were making the most of it. Fate did not often throw such chances in their way. For a moment I felt that noble joy which in this world is granted only to successful effort, to the accomplishment of some well-planned, well-executed design. Then silence fell suddenly upon the room, and I knew, though I could not see, that every girl was back in her own alcove.

"May I ask the meaning of this disorder!" said Madame Rayburn coldly.

She was _surveillante_, and was making the round of the dormitories, to see that everything was quiet after the day's excitement. Madame Chapelle began a nervous explanation. There was some mistake about the laundry. None of the children had their own clothes. They were trying--rather noisily, she admitted--to exchange them. Was it possible that Sister O'Neil--

"Sister O'Neil!" interrupted Madame Rayburn impatiently. "Sister O'Neil had nothing to do with it. Answer me quietly, children. Did you all find you had some one else's clothes?"

There was a murmur of assent,--a polite, subdued, apologetic sort of murmur; but, none the less, of universal assent. At that instant I remembered Sister O'Neil's parting words to me, and, with the instinctive impulse of the ostrich, slid deeper in my little bed. A quick step crossed the dormitory. A firm hand drew my curtain. "Agnes!" said Madame Rayburn, in a terrible voice.

Ah, well! Anyway, the _congé_ was over.

Marriage Vows

We had decided upon the married estate, titles, and foreign travel. I do not mean that we cherished such ambitions for the future,--what was the future to us?--but that in the world of illusions, which was our world, we were about to assume these new and dazzling conditions. Childish even for our years, though our years were very few, and preserved mercifully from that familiar and deadening intercourse with adults, which might have resulted in our being sensible and well informed, we cultivated our imaginations instead of our minds. The very bareness of our surroundings, the absence of all appliances for play, flung us back unreservedly upon the illimitable resources of invention. It was in the long winter months, when nature was unkind, when the last chestnut had been gathered, and the last red leaf pressed carefully in an atlas, that we awoke to the recognition of our needs, and slipped across the border-land of fancy. It was then that certain wise and experienced nuns watched us closely, knowing that our pent-up energies might at any moment break down the barriers of discipline; but knowing also that it was not possible for a grown-up person, however well disposed, to enter our guarded realm. We were always under observation, but the secret city wherein we dwelt was trodden by no other foot than ours.

It had rained for a week. We had exhausted the resources of literature and the drama. A new book in the convent library, a book with a most promising title, "The Witch of Melton Hill," had turned out to be a dismal failure. Elizabeth observed sardonically that if it had been named, as it should have been, "The Guardian Angel of Hallam House," we should at least have let it alone. An unreasoning relative had sent me as a belated Christmas gift, "Agnes Hilton; or Pride Corrected,"--making the feeble excuse that I bore the heroine's name. To a logical mind this would have seemed no ground either for giving me the story, or for blaming me because it proved unreadable. But Tony, to whom I lent it, reproached me with exceeding bitterness for having the kind of a name--a goody-goody name she called it--which was always borne by pious and virtuous heroines. She said she thanked Heaven none of them were ever christened Antoinette; and she seemed to hold me responsible for the ennobling qualities she despised.

As for the drama, we had acted for the second time Elizabeth's masterpiece, "The Youth of Michael Angelo," and there appeared to be no further opening for our talents. We little girls, with the imitative instincts of our age, were always endeavouring to reproduce on a modest scale the artistic triumphs with which the big girls entertained the school. It was hard work, because we had no plays, no costumes, and no manager. We had only Elizabeth, who rose to the urgent needs of the situation, overcoming for our sake the aversion she felt for any form of composition, and substituting for her French exercises the more inspiring labours of the dramatist. Her first attempt was slight, a mere curtain raiser, and dealt with the fortunes of a robber chief, who, after passionate pursuit of a beautiful and beloved maiden, finds out that she is his sister, and hails the news with calm fraternal joy. By a fortunate coincidence, he also discovers that an aged traveller whom he had purposed robbing is his father; so the curtain falls upon a united family, the gentle desperado quoting an admirable sentiment of Cowper's (it was in our reader, accompanied by a picture of a gentleman, a lady, a baby, and a bird-cage):--

"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall."

The success of this touching and realistic little play encouraged Elizabeth to more ambitious efforts. She set about dramatizing, with my assistance, a story from "The Boyhood of Great Painters," which told how the youthful Michael Angelo modelled a snow Faun in the gardens of Lorenzo de Medici, and how that magnificent duke, seeing this work of art before it had time to melt, showered praises and promises upon the happy sculptor. It was not a powerful theme, but there was an ancient retainer of the Buonarroti family (Elizabeth wisely reserved this part for herself), who made sarcastic remarks about his employers, and never appeared without a large feather duster, thus fulfilling all the legitimate requirements of modern comedy. What puzzled us most sorely was the Faun, which we supposed to be an innocent young quadruped, and had no possible way of presenting. Therefore, after a great deal of consideration, it was determined that a flower girl should be substituted; this happy idea (so suggestive of Michael Angelo's genius) being inspired by the plaster figures then sadly familiar to lawns and garden walks. In the story, the young artist emphasized the age of the Faun by deftly knocking out two of its front teeth,--a touch of realism beyond our range, as Viola Milton in a night-gown played the statue's part. In our drama, the Duke complained that the flower girl was too grave, whereupon Michael Angelo, with a few happy touches, gave her a smile so broad--Viola's teeth being her most prominent feature--that some foolish little girls in the audience thought a joke was intended, and laughed uproariously.

Marie played Michael Angelo. I was his proud father, who appeared only in the last scene, and said, "Come to my arms, my beloved son!" which he did so impetuously--Marie was nothing if not ardent--that I was greatly embarrassed, and did not know how to hold him. Lorenzo the Magnificent was affably, though somewhat feebly, portrayed by Annie Churchill, who wore a waterproof cloak, flung, like Hamlet's mantle, over her left shoulder, and a beaver hat with a red bow and an ostrich plume, the property of Eloise Didier. It was a significant circumstance that when Marie, rushing to my embrace, knocked over a little table, the sole furniture of the Medicean palace, and indicating by its presence that we were no longer in the snow, Lorenzo hastily picked it up, and straightened the cover; while Elizabeth--who had no business to be in that scene--stood calmly by, twirling her feather duster, and apparently accustomed to being waited on by the flower of the Florentine nobility.

The production of "Michael Angelo" cost us four weeks of hard and happy labour. His name became so familiar to our lips that Tony, whose turn it was to read night and morning prayers, substituted it profanely for that of the blessed Archangel. We always said the Credo and Confiteor in Latin, so that _beato Michaeli Archangelo_ became _beato Michael Angelo_, without attracting the attention of any ears save ours. It was one of those daring jests (as close to wickedness as we ever got) which served as passwords in our secret city. The second time we gave the play, we extended a general invitation to the First Cours to come and see it; and a score or so of the less supercilious girls actually availed themselves of the privilege. It is hard for me to make clear what condescension this implied. Feudal lord and feudal vassal were not more widely separated than were the First and Second Cours. Feudal lord and feudal vassal were not more firmly convinced of the justness of their respective positions. No uneasy agitator had ever pricked us into discontent. The existing order of things seemed to us as natural as the planetary system.

Now, casting about for some new form of diversion, Elizabeth proposed one stormy afternoon that we should assume titles, and marry one another; secretly, of course, but with all the pomp and circumstance that imagination could devise. She herself, having first choice, elected England for her dwelling-place, and Emily for her spouse. She took Emily, I am sure, because that silent and impassive child was the only one of the five who didn't particularly covet the honour. Elizabeth, protecting herself instinctively from our affection and admiration, found her natural refuge in this unresponsive bosom. Because Emily would just as soon have married Lilly or me, Elizabeth wisely offered her her hand. She also insisted that Emily, being older, should be husband. Mere surface ambition was alien to her character. The position of _maîtresse femme_ satisfied all reasonable requirements.

Names and titles were more difficult of selection. Emily was well disposed toward a dukedom; but Elizabeth preferred that her husband should be an earl, because an earl was "belted," and a duke, we surmised, wasn't.

"A duke is higher than an earl," said the well-informed Emily.

"But he isn't belted," insisted Elizabeth. "It's a 'belted knight' and a 'belted earl' always; never a belted duke. You can wear a belt if you're an earl, Emily."

"I do wear a belt," said the prosaic Emily.

"Then, of course, you've got to be an earl," retorted Elizabeth; reasoning by some process, not perfectly plain to us, but conclusive enough for Emily, who tepidly yielded the point. "Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel"--

"I won't be named Philip," interrupted Emily rebelliously.

"Well, then, Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, and we'll live in Arundel Castle."

"You got that out of 'Constance Sherwood,'" said Marie.

Elizabeth nodded. Lady Fullerton's pretty story had been read aloud in the refectory, and we were rather "up" in English titles as a consequence.

"I'm going to be Prince of Castile," said Tony suddenly.

I leaped from my chair. "You shan't!" I flashed, and then stopped short, bitterly conscious of my impotence. Tony had "spoken first." There was no wresting her honours from her. She knew, she must have known that Castile was the home of my soul, though no one had ever sounded the depth of my devotion. My whole life was lit by Spain's sombre glow. It was the land where my fancy strayed whenever it escaped from thraldom, and to which I paid a secret and passionate homage. The destruction of the Invincible Armada was the permanent sorrow of my childhood. And now Tony had located herself in this paradise of romance. "Castile's proud dames" would be her peers and countrywomen. The Alhambra would be her pleasure-house (geographically I was a trifle indistinct), and Moorish slaves would wait upon her will. I could not even share these blessed privileges, because it was plain to all of us that Tony's one chance of connubial felicity lay in having Lilly for a partner. The divorce courts would have presented a speedy termination to any other alliance.

"Never mind, Agnes," said Marie consolingly. "We don't want Castile. It's a soapy old place. We'll be Duke and Duchess of Tuscany."

I yielded a sorrowful assent. Tuscany awoke no echoes in my bosom. I neither knew nor cared whence Marie had borrowed the suggestion. But the priceless discipline of communal life had taught us all to respect one another's rights, and to obey the inflexible rules of play. Tony had staked her claim to Castile; and I became Beatrice della Rovere, Duchess of Tuscany, without protest, but without elation. Lilly looked genuinely distressed. Her sweet heart was hurt to feel that she was depriving a friend of any happiness, and it is safe to say that she was equally indifferent to the grandeurs of Italy and of Spain. Perhaps Griselda the patient felt no lively concern as to the whereabouts of her husband's estates. She had other and more serious things to ponder.

The marriage ceremony presented difficulties. We must have a priest to officiate; that is, we must have a girl discreet enough to be trusted with our secret, yet stupid enough, or amiable enough, to be put out of the play afterwards. We had no idea of being burdened with clerical society. Annie Churchill was finally chosen for the rôle. Her functions were carefully explained to her, and her scruples--she was dreadfully afraid of doing something wrong--were, by candid argument, overcome. Marie wanted to be married in the "Lily of Judah" chapel, a tiny edifice girt by the winding drive; but Elizabeth firmly upheld the superior claims of St. Joseph.

St. Joseph was, as we well knew, the patron of marriage, its advocate and friend. We depended upon him to find us our future husbands,--in which regard he has shown undue partiality,--and it was in good faith that we now placed ourselves under his protection. Our play inevitably reflected the religious influences by which we were so closely environed. I hear it said that the little sons of ministers preach to imaginary audiences in the nursery,--an idea which conveys a peculiar horror to my mind. We did not preach (which of us would have listened?), but we followed in fancy, like the child, Eugénie de Guérin, those deeply coloured traditions which lent atmosphere to our simple and monotonous lives. One of our favourite games was the temptation of St. Anthony. Mariana Grognon, a little French girl of unsurpassed agility, had "created" the part of the devil. Its special feature was the flying leap she took over the kneeling hermit's head, a performance more startling than seductive. This vivacious pantomime had been frowned upon by the mistress of recreation, who had no idea what it meant, but who considered, and with reason, that Mariana was behaving like a tomboy. Then one day an over-zealous St. Anthony--Marie probably--crossed himself with such suspicious fervour when the devil made his jump that the histrionic nature of the sport became evident, and it was sternly suppressed. The primitive humour of the miracle play was not in favour at the convent.

We were married in front of St. Joseph's statue, outside the chapel door, on Sunday afternoon. Sunday was selected for the ceremony, partly because we had possession of our white veils on that day,--and what bride would wear a black veil!--and partly because the greater liberty allowed us made possible an unobserved half-hour. It was Elizabeth's custom and mine to go to the chapel every Sunday before supper, and offer an earnest supplication to the Blessed Virgin that we might not be given medals that night at Primes. I loved Primes. It was the most exciting event of the week. There was an impressive solemnity about the big, hushed room, the long rows of expectant girls, Reverend Mother, begirt by the whole community, gazing at us austerely, and the seven days' record read out in Madame Bouron's clear, incisive tones. We knew how every girl in the school, even the exalted graduates and semi-sacred medallions, had behaved. We knew how they stood in class. We saw the successful students go up to receive their medals. Occasional comments from Madame Bouron added a bitter pungency to the situation. It was delightful from beginning to end, unless--and this happened very often to Elizabeth, and sometimes even to me--we had distinguished ourselves sufficiently to win our class medals for the week. _Then_, over an endless expanse of polished floor, slippery as glass, we moved like stricken creatures; conscious that our friends were watching us in mocking security from their chairs; conscious that we were swinging our arms and turning in our toes; and painfully aware that our curtsies would never come up to the required standard of elegance and grace. Elizabeth was furthermore afflicted by a dark foreboding that something--something in the nature of a stocking or a petticoat--would "come down" when she was in mid-stream, and this apprehension deepened her impenetrable gloom. It was in the hopes of averting such misery that we said our "Hail Marys" every Sunday afternoon, manifesting thereby much faith but little intelligence, as all these matters had been settled at "Conference" on Saturday.

I have always believed, however, that it was in answer to our prayers that a law was passed in mid-term, ordaining that no girl should be eligible for a class medal unless she had _all_ her conduct notes, unless her week's record was without a stain. As this was sheerly impossible, we were thenceforth safe. We heard our names read out, and sat still, in disgraceful but blessed security. Even Madame Bouron's icy censure, and Reverend Mother's vaguely reproachful glance (she was hopelessly near-sighted, and hadn't the remotest idea where we sat) were easier to bear than that distressful journey up and down the classroom, with every eye upon us.

The marriage ceremony would have been more tranquil and more imposing if we had not had such a poltroon of a priest. Annie was so nervous, so afraid she was committing a sin, and so afraid she would be caught in the commission, that she read the service shamefully, and slurred all the interesting details over which we wanted to linger. Elizabeth had to prompt her repeatedly, and Tony's comments were indefensible at such a solemn hour. When the three rings had been placed upon the brides' fingers, and the three veils bashfully raised to permit the salutations of the noble grooms, we promised to meet again in the boot and shoe closet, after the dormitory lights had been lowered, and hurried back to the schoolroom. To have played our parts openly in recreation hours would have been to destroy all the pleasures of illusion. Secrecy was indispensable, secrecy and mystery; a hurried clasp of Marie's hand, as she brushed by me to her desk; a languishing glance over our dictation books in class; a tender note slipped between the pages of my grammar. I have reason to believe I was the most cherished of the three brides. Tony was not likely to expend much energy in prolonged love-making, and Emily was wholly incapable of demonstration, even if Elizabeth would have tolerated it. But Marie was dramatic to her finger-tips; she played her part with infinite grace and zeal; and I, being by nature both ardent and imitative, entered freely into her conception of our rôles. We corresponded at length, with that freedom of phrase and singleness of idea which make love letters such profitable reading.

It was in our stolen meetings, however, in those happy reunions in the boot and shoe closet, or in another stuffy hole where our hats and coats were hung, that the expansive nature of our play was made delightfully manifest. It was then that we travelled far and wide, meeting dangers with an unflinching front, and receiving everywhere the respectful welcome due to our rank and fortunes. We went to Rome, and the Holy Father greeted us with unfeigned joy. We went to Venice, and the Doge--of whose passing we were blissfully ignorant--took us a-pleasuring in the Bucentaur. Our Stuart proclivities would not permit us to visit Victoria's court,--that is, not as friends. Tony thirsted to go there and raise a row; but the young Pretender being dead (we ascertained this fact definitely from Madame Duncan, who read us a lecture on our ignorance), there seemed nobody to put in the place of the usurping queen. We crossed the desert on camels, and followed Père Huc into Tartary and Thibet. Our husbands gave us magnificent jewels, and Lilly dropped her pearl earrings into a well, like "Albuharez' Daughter" in the "Spanish Ballads." This charming mishap might have happened to me, if only I had been Princess of Castile.

Then one day Elizabeth made a discovery which filled me with confusion. Before I came to school, I had parted with my few toys, feeling that paper dolls and grace-hoops were unworthy of my new estate, and that I should never again condescend to the devices of my lonely childhood. The single exception was a small bisque doll with painted yellow curls. I had brought it to the convent in a moment of weakness, but no one was aware of its existence. It was a neglected doll, nameless and wardrobeless, and its sole function was to sleep with me at night. Its days were spent in solitary confinement in my washstand drawer. This does not mean that evening brought any sense of exile to my heart. On the contrary, the night fears which at home made going to bed an ever repeated misery (I slept alone on a big, echoing third floor, and everybody said what a brave little girl I was) had been banished by the security of the dormitory, by the blessed sense of companionship and protection. Nevertheless, I liked to feel my doll in bed with me, and I might have enjoyed its secret and innocent society all winter, had I not foolishly carried it downstairs one day in my pocket, and stowed it in a corner of my desk. The immediate consequence was detection.

"How did you come to have it?" asked Elizabeth, wondering.

"Oh, it got put in somehow with my things," I answered evasively, and feeling very much ashamed.

Elizabeth took the poor little toy, and looked at it curiously. She must have possessed such things once, but it was as hard to picture her with a doll as with a rattle. She seemed equally remote from both. As she turned it over, an inspiration came to her. "I tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll take it for your baby,--it's time one of us had a child,--and we'll get up a grand christening. Do you want a son or a daughter?"

"I hope we won't have Annie Churchill for a priest," was my irrelevant answer.

"No, we won't," said Elizabeth. "I'll be the priest, and Tony and Lilly can be godparents. And then, after its christening, the baby can die,--in its baptismal innocence, you know,--and we'll bury it."

I was silent. Elizabeth raised her candid eyes to mine. "You don't want it, do you?" she asked.

"I don't want it," I answered slowly.

Marie decided that, as our first-born was to die, it had better be a girl. A son and heir should live to inherit the estates. She contributed a handkerchief for a christening robe; and Emily, who was generous to a fault, insisted on giving a little new work-basket, beautifully lined with blue satin, for a coffin. Lilly found a piece of white ribbon for a sash. Tony gave advice, and Elizabeth her priestly benediction. Beata Benedicta della Rovere ("That name shows she's booked for Heaven," said Tony) was christened in the _bénitier_ at the chapel door; Elizabeth performing the ceremony, and Tony and Lilly unctuously renouncing in her behalf the works and pomps of Satan. It was a more seemly service than our wedding had been, but it was only a prelude, after all, to the imposing rites of burial. These were to take place at the recreation hour the following afternoon; but owing to the noble infant's noble kinsmen not having any recreation hour when the afternoon came, the obsequies were unavoidably postponed.

It happened in this wise. Every day, in addition to our French classes, we had half an hour of French conversation, at which none of us ever willingly conversed. All efforts to make us sprightly and loquacious failed signally. When questions were put to us, we answered them; but we never embarked of our own volition upon treacherous currents of speech. Therefore Madame Davide levied upon us a conversational tax, which, like some of the most oppressive taxes the world has ever known, made a specious pretence of being a voluntary contribution. Every girl in the class was called upon to recount some anecdote, some incident or story which she had heard, or read, or imagined, and which she was supposed to be politely eager to communicate to her comrades. We always began "Madame et mesdemoiselles, figurez-vous," or "il y avait une fois," and then launched ourselves feebly upon tales, the hopeless inanity of which harmonized with the spiritless fashion of the telling. We all felt this to be a degrading performance. Our tender pride was hurt by such a betrayal, before our friends, of our potential imbecility. Moreover, the strain upon invention and memory was growing daily more severe. We really had nothing left to tell. Therefore five of us (Marie belonged to a higher class) resolved to indicate that our resources were at an end by telling the same story over and over again. We selected for this purpose an Ollendorfian anecdote about a soldier in the army of Frederick the Great, who, having a watch chain but no watch, attached a bullet--I can't conceive how--to the chain; and, when Frederick asked him the hour of the day, replied fatuously: "My watch tells me that any hour is the time to die for your majesty."

The combined improbability and stupidity of this tale commended it for translation, and the uncertainty as to the order of the telling lent an element of piquancy to the plot. Happily for Lilly, she was called upon first to "réciter un conte," and, blushing and hesitating, she obeyed. Madame Davide listened with a pretence of interest that did her credit, and said that the soldier had "beaucoup d'esprit;" at which Tony, who had pronounced him a fool, whistled a soft note of incredulity. After several other girls had enlivened the class with mournful pleasantries, my turn came, and I told the story as fast as I could,--so fast that its character was not distinctly recognized until the last word was said. Madame Davide looked puzzled, but let it pass. Perhaps she thought the resemblance accidental. But when Emily with imperturbable gravity began: "Il y avait une fois un soldat, honnête et brave, dans l'armée de Frédéric le Grand," and proceeded with the familiar details, she was sharply checked. "Faut pas répéter les mêmes contes," said Madame Davide; at which Emily, virtuous and pained, explained that it was _her_ conte. How could she help it if other girls chose it too? By this time the whole class had awakened to the situation, and was manifesting the liveliest interest and pleasure. It was almost pitiful to see children so grateful for a little mild diversion. Like the gratitude of Italian beggars for a few sous, it indicated painfully the desperate nature of their needs. There was a breathless gasp of expectancy when Elizabeth's name was called. We knew we could trust Elizabeth. She was constitutionally incapable of a blunder. Every trace of expression was banished from her face, and in clear, earnest tones she said: "Madame et mesdemoiselles,--il y avait une fois un soldat, honnête et brave, dans l'armée de Frédéric le Grand,"--whereupon there arose a shout of such uncontrollable delight that the class was dismissed, and we were all sent to our desks. Tony alone was deeply chagrined. Through no fault of hers, she was for once out of a scrape, and she bitterly resented the exclusion. It was in consequence of this episode that Beata Benedicta's funeral rites were postponed for twenty-four hours.

The delay brought no consolation to my heart. It only prolonged my unhappiness. I did not love my doll after the honest fashion of a younger child. I did not really fear that I should miss her. But, what was infinitely worse, I could not bring myself to believe that Beata Benedicta was dead,--although I was going to allow her to be buried. The line of demarcation between things that can feel and things that cannot had always been a wavering line for me. Perhaps Hans Andersen's stories, in which rush-lights and darning needles have as much life as boys and girls, were responsible for my mental confusion. Perhaps I merely held on longer than most children to a universal instinct which they share with savages. Any familiar object, anything that I habitually handled, possessed some portion of my own vitality. It was never wholly inanimate. Beata's little bisque body, with its outstretched arms, seemed to protest mutely but piteously against abandonment. She had lain by my side for months, and now I was going to let her be buried alive, because I was ashamed to rescue her. There was no help for it. Rather than confess I was such a baby, I would have been buried myself.

A light fall of snow covered the frozen earth when we dug Beata's grave with our penknives, and laid her mournfully away. The site selected was back of the "Seven Dolours" chapel (chapels are to convent grounds what arbours and summer-houses are to the profane), and we chose it because the friendly walls hid us from observation. We had brought out our black veils, and we put them on over our hats, in token of our heavy grief. Elizabeth read the burial service,--or as much of it as she deemed prudent, for we dared not linger too long,--and afterwards reassured us on the subject of Beata's baptismal innocence. That was the great point. She had died in her sinless infancy. We crime-laden souls should envy her happier fate. We put a little cross of twigs at the head of the grave, and promised to plant something there when the spring came. Then we took off our veils, and stuffed them in our pockets,--those deep, capacious pockets of many years ago.

"Let's race to the avenue gate," said Tony. "I'm frozen stiff. Burying is cold work."

"Or we might get one of the swings," said Lilly.

But Marie--whose real name, I forgot to say, was Francesco--put her arm tenderly around me. "Don't grieve, Beatrice," she said. "Our little Beata has died in her baptismal"--

"Oh, come away!" I cried, unable to bear the repetition of this phrase. And I ran as fast as I could down the avenue. But I could not run fast enough to escape from the voice of Beata Benedicta, calling--calling to me from her grave.

Reverend Mother's Feast

"Mother's feast"--in other words the saint's day of the Superioress--was dawning upon our horizon, and its lights and shadows flecked our checkered paths. Theoretically, it was an occasion of pure joy, assuring us, as it did, a _congé_, and not a _congé_ only, but the additional delights of a candy fair in the morning, and an operetta, "The Miracle of the Roses," at night. Such a round of pleasures filled us with the happiest anticipations; but--on the same principle that the Church always prefaces her feast days with vigils and with fasts--the convent prefaced our _congé_ with a competition in geography, and with the collection of a "spiritual bouquet," which was to be our offering to Reverend Mother on her fête.

A competition in anything was an unqualified calamity. It meant hours of additional study, a frantic memorizing of facts, fit only to be forgotten, and the bewildering ordeal of being interrogated before the whole school. It meant for _me_ two little legs that shook like reeds, a heart that thumped like a hammer in my side, a sensation of sickening terror when the examiner--Madame Bouron--bore down upon me, and a mind reduced to sudden blankness, washed clean of any knowledge upon any subject, when the simplest question was asked. Tried by this process, I was only one degree removed from idiocy. Even Elizabeth, whose legs were as adamant, whose heart-beats had the regularity of a pendulum, and who, if she knew a thing, could say it, hated to bound states and locate capitals for all the school to hear. "There are to be prizes, too," she said mournfully. "Madame Duncan said so. I don't like going up for a prize. It's worse than a medal at Primes."

"Oh, well, maybe you won't get one," observed Tony consolingly. "You didn't, you know, last time."

"I did the time before last," said Elizabeth calmly. "It was 'La Corbeille de Fleurs.'"

There was an echo of resentment in her voice, and we all--even Tony--admitted that she had just cause for complaint. To reward successful scholarship with a French book was one of those black-hearted deeds for which we invariably held Madame Bouron responsible. She may have been blameless as the babe unborn; but it was our habit to attribute all our wrongs to her malign influence. We knew "La Corbeille de Fleurs." At least, we knew its shiny black cover, and its frontispiece, representing a sylphlike young lady in a floating veil bearing a hamper of provisions to a smiling and destitute old gentleman. There was nothing in this picture, nor in the accompanying lines, "Que vois-je? Mon Dieu! Un ange de Ciel, qui vient à mon secours," which tempted us to a perusal of the story, even had we been in the habit of voluntarily reading French.

As for the "spiritual bouquet," we felt that our failure to contribute to it on a generous scale was blackening our reputations forever. Every evening the roll was called, and girl after girl gave in her list of benefactions. Rosaries, so many. Litanies, so many. Aspirations, so many. Deeds of kindness, so many. Temptations resisted, so many. Trials offered up, so many. Acts, so many. A stranger, listening to the replies, might have imagined that the whole school was ripe for Heaven. These blossoms of virtue and piety were added every night to the bouquet; and the sum total, neatly written out in Madame Duncan's flowing hand, was to be presented, with an appropriate address, to Reverend Mother on her feast, as a proof of our respectful devotion.