's precious little rest you will get there,'
said I, 'if it's rest you want?--What with the hard beds, and all the
prayers you have to say, and the popping out of bed, as soon as you
are asleep, to sing in the middle of the night, and those blessed
little bells going every three minutes and a half. There is no rest in
a convent, my dear.' But I might as well have talked to the wall.

"When I went to see her the next day, true enough, she declared that
she was more content already, and that her soul had found what it
yearned for--peace. She was quite calm, and sent you all messages to
say how she would pray for you and for the repose of the souls of
those you loved--Rupert, your rector and all--that they may reach
eternal bliss."

"God forbid!" exclaimed the pious Protestant, in horrified tones.

"God forbid?--You're a regular heathen, Sophia. Oh, I know what you
mean quite well. But would it not have been better for you to have
been praying for that poor fellow who never lived to marry you, all
these years, than to have been wasting your time weeping over spilt
milk? Tell me _that_, miss. Please to remember, too, that you could
not have come to be the heretic you are, if your great grandfather had
not been the time-server he was. Any how, you need not distress
yourself. I don't think Madeleine's prayers will do any one any harm,
even Rupert; though, honestly, I don't think they are likely to be of
much good in _that_ quarter. However, there, there, we won't discuss
the subject any more. Poor darling; so I left her. I declare I never
liked her so much as when I said good-bye, for I felt I'd never see
her again. And the Reverend Mother--oh! she is a very good, holy
woman--a Jerningham, and thus, you know, a connection of mine. She was
an heiress but chose the cloister. And I saw the buckles sable on a
memorial window in the chapel erected to another sister--also a
nun--they are a terribly pious family. I knew them at once, for they
are charges I also am entitled to bear, as you know, or, rather, don't
know, I presume; for you have all the haziest notion of what sort of
blood it is that runs in your veins. Well, as I said, she is a holy
woman! She tried to console me in her pious way. Oh, it was very
beautiful, of course:--bride of heaven and the rest of it. But I had
rather seen her the bride of a nice young man. Many is the time I have
wished I had not been so hasty about that poor young Smith. I don't
believe he _was