Bouquet."
She would have liked to ask the meaning of this remarkable collection, but was too much afraid of being thought as ignorant as she really was, and was glad that she had refrained, when Kathleen burst unasked into eager explanation:
"You see, we each put a stroke against whatever it is, as soon as we've done it; and if we each keep a separate list beside, every one'll know how much she's given. Last year that little kid Mollie Pearse actually had down one hundred and eighty-five ejaculations—and she was only seven then. Reverend Mother was most frightfully pleased when she heard about it. She liked it better than anything else."
"And had she really done them all?" asked Zella rather sceptically, and not absolutely certain what an "ejaculation " might be.
"Oh yes, rather! She did the last fifty straight off, all in one go, at recreation one night. It was too funny to see her, sitting in the corner and muttering away as fast as she could go, and all the other juniors standing looking at her, trying to keep count. Mere Jeanne wouldn't let anyone interrupt her. She says ejaculations are the best sort of prayers, you know."
"I don't at all agree," remarked Dorothy Brady loudly. "The Holy Souls for me. I can get simply anything I want by one De Profundis. They'll do anything for me—anything."
She spoke as though alluding to particularly highly trained performing animals, thought Zella.
"Oh, give me the rosary," said Mary McNeill, complacently whisking hers into her neighbour's face.
She habitually carried a rosary about with her, and contrived to tell an inconceivable number of beads while going up and down stairs, or in and out of doors, in file.
A babel immediately broke out, as the girls in various degrees of shrillness and enthusiasm vehemently proclaimed their favourite devotions.
The familiarity with which sacred names were screamed aloud scandalized Zella profoundly. .
She looked at Mother Veronica, wondering if she would not rebuke the irreverence of which these noisy partisans appeared to be guilty. But Mother Veronica smiled on serenely, until the tumult had somewhat subsided and she was able to make her own voice heard.
"Well, all devotions are good in their way, children, of course; but I must say that nothing ever seems to me quite equal to the dear Holy Ghost."
It appeared to Zella that the last word in profanity had been uttered by the smiling nun.
These shocks, however, were not destined to be the only ones sustained by Zella in connection with the mu'ch-talked-of Feast of Reverend Mother.
She quickly became accustomed to the sheet of foolscap inscribed "Spiritual Bouquet," hanging in the hall, and to which her companions rushed so frequently to place a fabulous number of pencil strokes. She even decided that it would be rather touching for the little Protestant to ask wistfully whether she also might not contribute her mite to the offering.
Instinctively selecting the guileless Mere Jeanne as victim for this histrionic experiment, Zella made her simple appeal one afternoon.
Mere Jeanne immediately kissed her warmly on both cheeks.
"Bien sûre, mon pauvre chéri! of course you must join in with the others, as far as you can. I will make you a list at once, and we shall see what you can do."
She nodded triumphantly as she fumbled in her ample pocket for pencil and paper.
"Tiens! I thought I had a pencil, but no—it is not there."
She drew out of the pocket a small rusty pocket-knife, two fat foreign envelopes with. frayed and torn edges, a small black rosary, a stout little book where innumerable cards and pictures were imperfectly confined by a worn elastic band, and the large checked square of duster that served her as pocket-handkerchief.
"No, it does not seem to be here."
She dived again, and Zella, fascinated, saw emerge yet another little book, this time protected by a neat garb of black alpaca, Mere Jeanne's well-worn old spectacle case, and a tiny stump of pencil concealed among a handful of old postage-stamps torn off their envelopes.
"What a lot your pocket holds!" she observed with polite astonishment.
"You must not be scandalized to see a religious, vowed to holy poverty, owning so much," said the old nun anxiously. "The stamps are collected for a Chinese mission, which I believe has been specially recommended by the Holy Father," she added triumphantly. "The little rosary is one that has actually touched the Rock of Lourdes, and I always carry it about for my rheumatism, which is very bad in this damp climate."
Her twisted hands fumbled at the beads lovingly.
"As for the spectacle case, it is in the true spirit of poverty that I possess such a thing, since it preserves my spectacles from getting broken. I have had this very pair for fifteen years, without an accident; so that the case is really an economy, since if the spectacles got broken they would have to be replaced. We nuns are not so unpractical as people in the world would like to imagine; we think of these little contrivances."
"What a good idea!" said Zella, feeling as though she were humouring a child.
"As for the books, dear, they are not mine at all; they are the Community's, and lent to me by Our Mother. You shall see what we inscribe in all the books we use."
She opened one shabby little volume, and Zella saw that on the fly-leaf was pencilled in pointed French handwriting:
"À l'usage de Soeur Jeanne Marie."
"You see, dear, a nun has nothing at all of her own. I have used this book for twenty years, but, as it is not mine, I can have no inordinate attachment to it."
"I thought one only had inordinate attachments for people, not for things," said Zella, mindful of her Thomas a Kempis.
"Oh no, my dear child. Human nature is very weak, and can easily attach itself to trifles. I remember hearing a very sad story when I was a child, that made a great impression on me. It was about a very holy nun, belonging to one of the strictest contemplative Orders, though I can't for the moment remember which one. She had always been a shining light in her Community through her love of obedience and mortification, and when she lay dying the Mother Prioress and all the Sisters expected to be greatly edified, and they all knelt round the bed, praying for her departing soul, and thinking what beautiful dispositions she must be in after such a holy life. Presently, however, they saw that she became very uneasy and was no longer attending to the prayers, and at last she was in such a state of alarm and agitation that her confessor felt she must have something on her conscience. So he bent down and asked her what it was.
"And, my dear, it is terrible to relate, but that poor dying soul was tormented by a dreadful certainty that something was drawing her down to hell; and the fearful part of it was that she couldn't remember having done a deliberate sin for years and years. Well, her confessor, who was a very wise man, suddenly bethought himself of asking her whether, perhaps, she had not allowed herself to become attached to some material object of which she had the use. And, sure enough, she suddenly remembered a ball of twine that had been given her for some particular purpose, and that she had kept in her cell afterwards because she thought it might prove useful some other time. And she begged and implored that it might be fetched; so they brought it to her, and she was able to give it back to the Prioress with her own hands and ask pardon for her want of detachment,
