l
give her something she won't forget in a hurry!"

"Come, my Beatrice,--quick!" said Bruno.

"Go, go, my Belasez, and God keep thee!" sobbed Abraham.

And so Belasez was driven away from her old home. She had hardly
expected it. It had always been a trouble to her, and a cause of
self-reproach, that she and Licorice did not love each other better: and
she was not able to repress a sensation of satisfaction in making the
discovery that Licorice was not her mother. Yet Belasez had not looked
for this.

"What are we to do, Father?" she asked rather blankly.

"I must lodge thee with the Sisters of Saint Clare, my child; there is
nothing else to be done. I will come and fetch thee away so soon as my
arrangements can be made."

Beatrice,--as we must henceforth call her,--did not fancy this
arrangement at all. Bruno detected as much in her face.

"Thou dost not like it, my dove?"

"I do not like being with strangers," she said frankly. "And I am
afraid the nuns will think me a variety of heathen, for I cannot do all
they will want me."

"They will not, if I tell the Abbess that thou art a new convert," said
Bruno. "They may very likely attempt to instruct thee."

"Father, why should there be any nuns?"

Beatrice did not know how she astonished Bruno. But he only smiled.

"Thine eyes are unaccustomed to the light," was all he answered.

"But, Father, among our people of old,--I mean," said Beatrice
hesitatingly, "my mother's people--"

"Go on, my Beatrice. Let it be `our people.' Speak as it is nature to
thee to do."

"Thank you, my father. Among our people, there were no nuns. So far
from it, that for a woman to remain unwed was considered a reproach."

"Why?--dost thou know?"

"I think, because every woman longed for the glory of being the mother
of the Messiah."

"True. Therefore, Christ being come, that reproach is done away. Let
each woman choose for herself. `If a virgin marry, she hath not
sinned.' Nevertheless, `she that is unmarried thinks of the things of
the Lord, that she may be holy, body and soul.'"

"Father, do you wish _me_ to be a nun?"

"Never!" hastily answered Bruno. "Nay, my Beatrice; I should not have
said that. Be thou what the Lord thinks best to make thee. But I do
not want to be left alone again."

Beatrice's heart was set at rest. She had terribly feared for a moment
lest Bruno, being himself a monk, might think her absolutely bound to be
a nun.

They