for the scandal she had given. So then she was able to die in peace, and the Devil was robbed of his prey after all.
"But that story has always seemed to me a warning of how very easily one can risk one's soul. Just think, my dear, of that little ball of string being able to draw the soul of a religious into hell. It is too terrible."
Zella was silent, not, as Mère Jeanne doubtless supposed, because she was too deeply impressed by this appalling anecdote to utter a word, but from sheer amazement at a point of view so utterly foreign to her.
It was impossible to doubt the old nun's absolute sincerity, and the very impression of unyielding conviction which her tones conveyed was almost terrifying to the child brought up in the lax atmosphere of Villetswood.
She was positively relieved when M&re Jeanne calmly went on:
"But I am forgetting what I wanted my pencil for. Look, dear, I will mark down for you what I think you can do towards our dear Mother's bouquet. Prayers: We can all say our prayers, you know, and God will accept them as they are meant."
Her tone conveyed an impression of broad-mindedness on the part of the Deity expressly expended for Zella's benefit.
"Hours of Silence, of course, you can also offer up. Do you understand what that means?"
"Not quite. We have so many hours of silence, it seems to me," replied Zella.
"Pauvre chou! You are not used to it yet." "But does it mean that I have to do extra ones?" faltered Zella.
The old nun burst out laughing.
"No, no, my child! I do not ask you to spend your recreation in silence, for instance, nor to wake up in the middle of the night in order to remain silent for an hour. But use those opportunities, of which, as you say, you have so many. Spend your study hour in perfect silence, for instance, and offer it up for our dear Mother."
"I don't quite see how it will do her good."
"If you offer the merit of your good action for her, it will be so much spiritual gain for her. Do you understand, petite?"
"Yes," said Zella, who, never having heard the word "merit" used in this connection, was, if possible, .more utterly at a loss than before.
"That is well. Then we come to Acts of Mortification, which I need not explain, need I?"
"Oh no!" replied Zella readily, and with distinct recollection of saints who lashed themselves with thongs, slept on hard boards, existed for days without food, and the like.
"There, then, my dear child, you can quite feel that you are contributing with the others towards our Mother's Feast, and you may be sure that she will be glad to hear how much you wished it. There is the bell for Office, and I must go quickly. I shall not forget to say a special little prayer for you."
She patted Zella kindly on the head and hurried away, her lips moving even as she went, in earnest supplications for the conversion of the little Protestant who already showed such good dispositions.
Zella felt strangely disturbed as she reviewed the conversation, and wondered if she should ever come to feel anything with the absolute fervour of conviction which Mere Jeanne brought to bear upon the smallest as well as the greatest detail of her far-reaching and incredibly intricate creed.
She thought the old nun childish and superstitious, but she also felt a passionate and oddly unchildlike envy of her powers of belief, even while holding herself enormously superior to the whole tangle of pious catchwords and superstitious practices of which she supposed the Catholic religion to consist.
It was this sense of her superiority to her surroundings that led Zella into one of the many errors of her convent days. She determined to prove to the beholders in general that she could, if she chose, and in spite of what they all appeared to consider as the disadvantage of being a Protestant, beat them on their own ground.
Shortly before Reverend Mother's Feast she appeared one evening at Mother Veronica's recreation with a contracted brow and limping perceptibly.
So fierce a discussion was raging on the relative merits of St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalene, always rival favourites, that Zella, to her annoyance, remained unnoticed for some little while. At last, however, after she had drawn in her breath with a sharp hiss of apprehension as a younger child brushed against her in running past, she heard the expected inquiry:
"What have you done to your foot, Zella?"
"Oh, nothing," she said hurriedly; " I mean, it doesn't really matter."
"Have you hurt yourself, dear?" inquired Mother Veronica unemotionally.
"Not—not exactly," said Zella, with artistic hesitation. "Please don't ask me about it now, Mother."
"But is anyone looking after it? Have you been to the infirmary?"
"Oh, no. I'd rather not have a fuss, please," earnestly begged Zella, doing her best to create one by the emphasis and confusion of her manner..
"Nonsense," briskly returned Mother Veronica, "of course it must be attended to. I see you are limping. Now tell me at once, Zella, what is the matter."
"Could I tell you privately?"
By this time the girls were all listening eagerly, and Zella was enjoying herself.
"You had better overcome human respect, and tell me quite simply and naturally what you have done to yourself, I think."
"It was for Reverend Mother's Feast," faltered the ingenuous Zella, looking down. "What?"
Zella raised her grey eyes with an innocently rapt expression.
It was my first Act of Mortification."
She took off her shoe and extracted a small glass marble.
She had almost expected that an emotionally shaken Mother Veronica would embrace her then and there, and that the girls would at least keep a touched and reverent silence, and she was utterly unprepared for the gale of merriment that broke out all round her on the instant of this revelation.
She stood scarlet, rooted to the spot, and overwhelmed with an appalling sense of disaster.
Even the humourless face of Mother Veronica was smiling. She was English, and had a great deal of common-sense, with little imagination.
In the space of a second or two, however, she had checked her amusement, and silenced that of the children by smartly clapping her hands together. The accustomed signal hushed them at once, and she spoke briefly.
"That will do now. Zella will know better another time, and there is nothing to make such a noise about. Go and ring the bell for prayers, Mary."
Mary departed, still giggling violently, and the girls, conscious of approaching bedtime, broke out into volubility again.
Zella was fighting tears of rage and mortification. Mother Veronica spoke to her in a low voice, and not unkindly:
"You mustn't take this little humiliation to heart so much, child. Offer it up, instead of the marble in your shoe."
She rather obviously
