Mother, dear, just as we all do."
She bestowed Zella in a small scantily furnished parlour, and there left her to her anticipations for the better part of half an hour.
At last Reverend Mother made her tardy entrance, with no appearance of haste and no expressions of regret, and Zella rose rather timidly.
"Well, my dear child, so you've come to have a little talk with me, and I'm very glad to see you. And how do you like our convent life?"
"Oh, very much," said Zella glibly, the reply having been frequently on her lips during the past fortnight.
"That s riglit—that's right. It is not like anything you have ever known before, eh?"
"No," said Zella, raising her eyes with an expression of confiding candour. "You see, I've never been to school, and I don't think I've been brought up in quite an ordinary way, either."
"No?" said Reverend Mother encouragingly, and sitting down as though for a long conference.
Zella felt that she was being a success.
"My father and—and mother did not really bring me up in any special religion, or teach me much about it," she faltered, the facts of the case suddenly taking new aspects before her eyes as she related them. "I have hardly ever been to church, and I never had catechism lessons and—and things like other girls."
"Poor child! and you are beginning to feel the want of religion. We can none of us do without it, you know, dear."
Zella thought of her father, whom she honestly supposed to be a man without religion, and then of the Baronne, with her intense, almost child-like faith.
"My grandmother is a Catholic," she said wistfully, "and my aunt, but all my English relations are Protestants."
A recollection crossed her mind as she spoke of Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and the indignation with which that lady would have heard her Anglican Catholicity profaned by such an adjective as Protestant.
"And does not the Protestant Faith satisfy you, Zella?" inquired Reverend Mother gravely.
Zella readily followed her lead.
"It does not really mean very much to me," she returned, with much truth.
"You must pray for faith, and Our Lord will answer that prayer in His own way and His own time."
It was not quite the response expected by the impetuous Zella, and she supposed herself to be on the wrong tack, as it were.
"So long as one does one's best, I am sure God does not mind which creed one professes. After all, we are all Christians and all trying to get to Heaven," she informed Reverend Mother with a confident smile, and a happy remembrance of a similar doctrine overheard long ago amongst her mother's friends at Villetswood.
But Reverend Mother's expression was one of unaffected disapproval.
"No, dear child," she replied very firmly indeed, "that is far from being the case. God has established His Church, one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, and that is the way of salvation that He has appointed."
"Then why aren't we all born into it?" demanded Zella, more from a desire to impress Reverend Mother with her logical mind than from any real wish for information.
"Faith is a free gift of God, which He bestows of His great mercy. But we can all pray for more faith, and it is a prayer that will never remain unanswered. The Apostles prayed that their faith might be increased, you know."
"Yes," eagerly replied Zella, who did not know. "And if one prays like that, and does one's best, it must be right. After all, I suppose it is better to be a good sincere heathen than a bad Christian."
"No, no, that is quite wrong idea," said Reverend Mother more firmly than ever. "Remember, there must be Truth somewhere, and it is better to be in the Truth, even if one has the misfortune not to live up to the amount of grace bestowed, than out of it."
Zella felt at least ten years older and wiser than Reverend Mother, and inquired rather incredulously:
"And do you really think it is better to be, say, a bad Catholic than a good Protestant?"
"Certainly I do; but you do not understand that, I see. It sounds to you narrow-minded and uncharitable, does it not?" said Reverend Mother, laughing with a whole-heartedness that rather disconcerted Zella, the more especially as Reverend Mother's diagnosis of her thoughts was a perfectly correct one. She felt so much less superior than before that it was a relief when the nun began to question her as to her various classes.
The conversation proceeded readily enough, though Zella was conscious of a slight undercurrent of disappointment that Reverend Mother apparently did not care to pursue the topic of Zella's religious views any farther; and at the end of twenty minutes the nun said kindly, but rising rather with the air of one who had brought a duty to its successful conclusion:
"Now, Zella, remember that, if ever you want to speak to me, you can write a little note and tell me so, and I will find time to come down to you."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Zella, her habitually pretty tones of gratitude over-emphasized from sheer nervousness.
"Any of the children may speak to me when they really wish it, and I am always especially glad to see the elder girls."
Rightly or wrongly, Zella interpreted this into an insinuation that the projected favour should not be looked upon as a personal and exclusive one, and immediately felt unreasonably dejected.
She did not quite know what she had expected as outcome of the interview, but felt vaguely that it had fallen short of the anticipations raised by the awe and envy with which such a privilege was always mentioned by the other girls.
She rallied her forces desperately as she prepared to open the door for Reverend Mother, in a last valiant effort to raise the tone of the interview to a higher level.
"Will you sometimes say a prayer for me?" she asked wistfully, lifting her dark grey eyes appealingly.
Most of the children gabbled a request of the sort on meeting most of the nuns, but the invariable formula was, "Pray for me, won't you?" or, if the suppliant were facetiously inclined, "Pray for my conversion, please, Mother."
The request had naturally hitherto been a strange one to Zella's lips, and the slight timidity in her manner and wording were not without effect.
Reverend Mother did not reply, as Zella had half expected she would, "I pray for all our children, dear," with the impersonal accent so beloved of convents, but answered warmly:
"Indeed I will, dear child, most especially; and you must pray, too, for yourself, that you may learn whatever you are meant to learn at the convent, and make good use of all the opportunities God gives you. He has designs on your soul, dear child, you may be sure of it."
Zella regarded as a special object of attention from the Almighty, was a pleasant object for Zella to contemplate, and her depression fled.
She ventured a final touch.
"Won't you give me the little cross on my forehead?" she asked, alluding to Reverend Mother's habitual form of greeting to the children.
Reverend
