I would rely upon the beaming portress, whose "_Sure_"
was such an earnest of her good-will. Moreover, a feeling of contempt,
growing out of pity, was taking possession of me. This man, in what
did he differ from the Catholic priest save in the utter selfishness
of his creed? Beside the sordid accumulation of gain to which his life
was devoted the priest's mission among crowded alleys and
fever-stricken lanes seemed luminous and grand. A moral suicide, with
no redeeming feature. The barns bursting with fatness, the comfortable
houses, gain added to gain--to what end? I was beginning to give very
short answers indeed to his questions, and was already meditating a
foray through the rest of the house, when the door opened slowly and a
lady-abbess entered. She was stiff and stately, with the most formal
neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened bust, a clear-muslin
cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and cold--a
pale, frozen woman standing stately there.
"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here--I know it. Do not detain her.
I must see her. Why all this delay?"
"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones.
"No, nobody's sister--least of all a sister here--but the young lady
who came over here from Lenox two months ago--Bessie Stewart, Mrs.
Sloman's niece.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85