Well, dear Louis, this is a long letter indeed, but I felt that you would need comfort, as I do myself. Let me know if and when you will send Zella to us. She shall not hear one word of reproach, but I can't help thinking that when she is in the wholesome atmosphere of English home life again all this nonsense will be forgotten. After all, she is not even quite seventeen, and, as I always say, while there is life there is hope.
Ever your affectionate
MARIANNE LLOYD-EVANS.
VILLETSWOOD, July 7.
MY DEAR MARIANNE,
Your suggestion of having Zella with you for the present is an extremely kind one, and I trust that you will see no lack of gratitude in my refusal of the invitation on her behalf. Her holidays begin in a fortnight's time, and she will spend them at Villetswood with me, as I am anxious to judge for myself how this new experience of hers is affecting her.
I agree with you that it is not improbable that Zella's imagination will turn, for a time at any rate, in the direction of convent life. But I am quite sure that she is not of the stuff of which nuns are made, and I think she is quite clever enough to discover that for herself without even getting so far as to make a trial of it.
Believe me, Marianne, that I regret the pain which I know this act of Zella's has caused you, but I have a strong conviction that the question of creed is an individual one, and I should hardly have felt it right to withhold her from a step which she so greatly desired to take.
She seems very happy, and I am assured by the convent authorities that she has made some real and practical efforts in the direction of self-conquest since the Catholic religion has become so great a reality to her.
I hope that we shall see you and Henry some time this summer at Villetswood.
Believe me, your affectionate
LOUIS DE KERVOYOU.
VILLETSWOOD, August 15 (Feast of the the Assumption).
DEAREST REVEREND MOTHER,
Here at last is the long letter which I have been longing to write you ever since the holidays began. I really didn't have time for more than notes before.
Well, my holidays are being very nice, and though, of course, I miss the convent very, very much, especially the dear little chapel,. I can honestly say that I am very happy. My father and I had a long talk about religion the other evening, and I was able to tell him all the extraordinary graces I have been given, and how I really feel that God has led me to the Catholic Church in the most wonderful manner, and he was most kind and understanding. Of course, the Catholic religion doesn't really convey much to him, but I do almost think it might be as you said, dear Reverend Mother, and his love for me lead him to think about it more than ever before. Of course, I am praying most frightfully hard that he may become a Catholic too some day, and I should be doubly happy if God allowed me to be the means of bringing him into the Church. I do hope that that thought isn't a temptation to self-love?
I am not forgetting all my promises to you. I make my meditation every morning, and find the books very helpful indeed; though I really prefer just meditating on a chapter of the New Testament, and I never seem to grow tired, or to have distractions, over that. Of course, I say the rosary every day, and always have a most special intention for you, dear Reverend Mother. My father is very good about driving me over to Mass every Sunday, and also about the Friday abstinence. The other day I actually forgot all about it, and ate bacon at breakfast. I remembered afterwards, and felt very miserable, and wished that I could have been at the convent so as to ask you about it at once ; but I felt sure that, as it really was an accident, it could not be a sin, and I remembered your saying that I had a tendency to scruples, so I just made a good act of contrition and then left it. I told the priest about it when I went to confession on Saturday, and he said it was quite all right.
I do hope that you are not forgetting to pray for me, dear Reverend Mother. My very best love to everyone at the convent. I am looking forward to coming back again in September, and only wish that it wasn't my last year.
Always your most grateful and loving child,
ZELLA.
P.S.—I do wish I had always been called by my real name, Gisele, which is a Saint's name.
XVII
WHEN Zella returned to spend her last year at the convent, she found, as she had half hoped, that existence there had ceased to be monotonous. Spiritual experiences added interest and variety to life, and the progress of relations between her soul and its Creator admitted of endless meditations and of frequent consultations with Reverend Mother.
The effect of Zella's conversion upon the other girls was perhaps less startling than she had hoped, and certainly wore off long before she had ceased to feel all the self-consciousness of novelty every time that she took her place in the kneeling row of girls outside the confessional on Saturday afternoons. The nuns, with one or two exceptions that included the imperturbable Mother Veronica, continued to meet her gaze with an expression of softened and unusual interest, and Zella was complacently aware of being looked upon as a special testimonial to the mercy of Providence, but her secret desire for popularity among her schoolmates came no nearer fulfilment.
Kathleen Mallet had left the school at midsummer, and Zella was glad that she need no longer be reminded of an episode the humiliation of which she still remembered with exaggerated shame and misery.
But even the pretence at friendship which had enlivened her intercourse with Kathleen never found its way into her relationship with any of the other girls.
Zella began to wonder despairingly what was lacking in her that she could neither attract nor be attracted by any one of her compeers. She grew to look upon it as a strange stigma, something that set her apart from the other girls, and speedily exaggerated her point of view into a species of monstrous secret sorrow.
She felt lowered in her own estimation. Indeed, the whole heart of her trouble lay in the fact that the good-natured indifference which was all that her companions conceded to her, violently disturbed Zella's own conception of herself as the slender central figure on whom all eyes should inevitably be fixed on every possible occasion.
She had not been a Catholic for more than three months, when a sudden inspiration provided her with the solution to this distressing problem.
Human love had been denied her. Might not this have been ordained with a distinct view to the exclusive nature of Divine love?
Zella felt a throb of intense gratification, which she mistook for blinding illumination, as this view of the case presented itself to her. Called by God to belong to Himself alone! What could be clearer, more inevitable, one might say more suitable?
No wonder that human intercourse had failed to satisfy her!
Zella burned to impart her new discovery to Reverend Mother. She wrote a little note asking for an interview, and for the next two days trod upon air, as she mentally rehearsed the few simple sentences in which she would make clear to Reverend Mother the number and magnitude of the sacrifices entailed upon her by the high destiny to which she was called.
Reverend
