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The excitement of the last half-hour had cut off from his present state of mind the emotion he had felt before the abbess's cry for help, but had not decreased the impression it had left.
Sister Christine was not wont to make haste; but she did her best to gratify Euphrosyne. She went straight to the corner of the shrubbery where the abbess's mocking-bird spent all its summer days, hung up the cage, and brought back what Euphrosyne had asked. The branch was drawn up in the noose of the cord, and the nun could not but stand and watch the event.
X. C. V. profited by the delight of her mother in seeing her again safe and sound, and made her wait on M. de Sartine with the abbess's certificate, stop all proceedings against me, and withdraw all the charges she had made.
"You are right; I think you are the sweetest of your sex. I shall die of grief when you leave this cottage to return to your sad prison." "I must indeed return and do penance for my sins." "I hope you have the wit to laugh at the abbess's silly excommunications?" "I begin not to dread them so much as I used to." "I am delighted to hear it, as I see you will make me perfectly happy after supper."
Meanwhile the cardinal had exerted his influence with his sister, the abbess, and had so far succeeded that Dalrymple, who went every day to the convent, was now made to stand with his back to the abbess's open door, in order that he might at least ask her questions and hear her own answers.
As usual, too, she sat down in the abbess's own big easy-chair, expecting that Dalrymple would seat himself opposite to her. But he remained standing, with the evident intention of going away in a few moments. He said a few words about the patient, gave one or two directions, and then stood still in silence for a moment.
The chapel, with its delicate windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess's seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys.
The abbess's parlour and the refectory had to be adorned with fresh flowers. Napkins, of the workmanship of one sister, were laid beside the plates; and on the table were fruits gathered by another, sweetmeats made by a third, and chocolate prepared by the careful hands of a fourth. Even the abbess's veil looked whiter, and more exactly put on than usual.
But the hymn soon flagged there was more mirth on board than could vent itself in old Charles Wesley's words; and one began to hum a song tune, and then another, with a side glance at the expression of the Lady Abbess's face, till at last, when a fair wife took courage, and burst out with full pipe into 'The sea, the sea, the ice was fairly broken; and among jests and laughter one merry harmless song after another rang out, many of them, to Claude's surprise, fashionable London ones, which sounded strangely enough out there on the wild western sea.
I was delighted with her letter, but much more with the abbess's epistle to Madame du Rumain. She was evidently fond of the girl, and could not say too much in her praise, saying how sweet-tempered, clever, and lady-like she was; winding up by assuring her friend that she went to see her every day.
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