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rette. "Very good: then I will make application for it. Good night! no time to stay. Mabel? Oh, she's all right. Farewell!" And Romund shut the door and disappeared. "Deary me, that seems done all of a hurry like!" said Isel. "I don't half like such sudden, hasty sort of work. Derette, child, are you sure you'll not be sorry?" "No, I don't think I shall, Mother. I shall have more liberty in the anchorhold than in the nunnery." "More liberty, quotha!" cried Isel in amazement. "Whatever can the child mean? More liberty, penned up in two little chambers, and never to leave them all your life, than in a fine large place like Godstowe, with a big garden and cloisters to walk in?" "Ah, Mother, I don't want liberty for my feet, but for my soul. There will be no abbess nor sisters to tease one in the anchorhold." "Well, and what does that mean, but never a bit of company? Just your one maid, and tied up to her. And the child calls it `liberty'!" "You forget, Mother," said Haimet mischievously. "There will be the Lady Derette. In the cloister they are only plain Sister." Every recluse had by courtesy the title of a baron. "As if I cared for that rubbish!" said Derette with sublime scorn. "Dear! I thought you were going on purpose," retorted her brother. "Whom will you have for your maid, Derette?" asked her sister. "Ermine, if I might have her," answered Derette with a smile. Gerhardt suddenly stopped the reply which Ermine was about to make. "No," he said, "leave it alone to-night, dear. Lay it before the Lord, and ask of Him whether that is the road He hath prepared for thee to walk in. It might be for the best, Ermine." There was a rather sorrowful intonation in his voice. "I will wait till the morning, and do as you desire," was Ermine's reply. "But I could give the answer to-night, for I know what it will be. The best way, and the prepared way, is that which leads the straightest Home." It was very evident, when the morning arrived, that Gerhardt would much have liked Ermine to accept the lowly but safe and sheltered position of companion to Derette in the anchorhold. While the hermit lived alone, but wandered about at will, the anchorite, who was never allowed to leave his cell, always had with him a companion of his own sex, through whom he communicated with the outer world. Visitors of the same sex, or children, could enter the cell freely, or the anchorite might
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