poken.

But Madame Bernard put on her hat and went out to see the judge, who
was generally at home late in the afternoon; and Angela sat alone in
the dusk for a while, poking her little fire with a pair of very rusty
wrought-iron tongs, at least three hundred years old, which would have
delighted a collector but which were so heavy and clumsy that they
hurt her hands.

Her aunt's piece of advice came back to her; she had better ask to be
taken in at one of the convents which her father had enriched and
where she would be received without a dowry. She knew them both, and
both were communities of cloistered nuns; the one was established in a
gloomy mediaeval fortress in the heart of the city, built round a
little garden that looked as unhealthy as the old Prioress's own
muddy-complexioned face and stubbly chin; the other was shut up in a
hideous modern building that had no garden at all. She felt nothing
but a repugnance that approached horror when she thought of either,
though she tried to reprove herself for it because her father had
given so much money to the sisters, and had always spoken of them to
her as 'holy women.' No doubt they were; doubtless, too, Saint Anthony
of Thebes had been a holy man, though it would have been unpleasant to
share his cell, or even his meals. Angela felt that if she was to live
on bread, water, and salad, she might as well have liberty with her
dinner of herbs. It was heartless to think of marrying, no doubt, when
her father had not yet been dead a week, but since she was forced to
take the future into consideration, she felt sure that Giovanni would
marry her without a penny, and that she should be perfectly happy with
him. She could well afford to laugh at the Princess's advice so long
as Giovanni was alive. He was coming to see her to-morrow, she would
tell him everything, and when the year of her mourning expired they
would be married.

The question was, what she was to do in the meantime, since it was
quite clear that she must soon leave the home in which she had been
brought up. Like all people who have never been face to face with
want, or any state of life even distinctly resembling poverty, she had
a vague idea that something would be provided for her. It was not till
she tried to define what that something was to be that she felt a
little sinking at her heart; but the cheering belief soon returned,
that the whole affair was a mistake, unless it was a pure invention of
her a