et--I hardly know why,--I did not feel the
appeal to her as hopeless as to Mother Ada. To entreat the latter was
like beseeching a stone wall. Mother Gaillarde's very peevishness (if I
dare call it so) showed that she was a woman, and not an image.

"Mother Gaillarde," I said, suddenly--for something seemed to bid me
speak out--"be not angry with me, I pray you. I am afraid of letting
things alone. My heart seems to be like a dry bough, and my soul
withering up, and I want to keep them alive and warm. Surely death is
not perfection!"

I was going on, but something which I saw made me stop suddenly. Two
warriors were fighting together in Mother Gaillarde's face. All at once
she dropped the knife, and hiding her face in her veil, she sobbed for a
minute as if her heart were breaking. Then, all at once, she brushed
away her tears and stood up again.

"Child!" she said, in a voice very unlike her usual one, "you are too
young for your years. Do not think that dried-up hearts are the same
thing as no hearts. Women who seem as though they could not love any
thing may have loved once too well, and when they awoke from the dream
may never have been able to dream again. Ay, thou art right: death is
not perfection. Some of us, maybe, are very far off perfection--further
than others think us; furthest of all from what we think ourselves.
There have been times when I seemed to see for a moment what perfection
is--and it was far, far from all we call it here. God forgive us all!
Go to the Infirmary: and if any chide thee for being there, say thou
earnest in obedience to me."

She turned back to her plum-stoning with a resolute face which might
have been a mask of iron: and I, after offering lowly thanks, took the
way to the Infirmary.

I fear I have been unjust to Mother Gaillarde, and I am sorry for it. I
seem to see now, that her hard, snappish speeches (for she does snap
sometimes) are not from absence of heart, but are simply a veil to hide
the heart. Ah me! how little we human creatures know of each others'
hidden feelings! But I shall never think Mother Gaillarde without heart
again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The rule of silence varied considerably in different Orders,
but in all, except the very strict, nuns were at liberty to converse
during some period of the day.

Note 2. This transferring of Margaret from Watton is purely imaginary.