And in the nursery the good creature had cried over the "poor
bairn" a good deal, mumbling strange things which Mary could not
understand. But a few words had lingered in her memory, something about
its being cruel and unjust to visit the sins of others on innocent
babies. A few days afterward Mary's father, very thin and
strange-looking, with hard lines in his handsome brown face, took her
with him on a journey, after nurse had kissed her many times with
streaming tears. At last they had got out of the train into a carriage,
and driven a long way. At evening they had come to a tall, beautiful
gateway, which had carved stone animals on high pillars at either side.
That was the gate of the Convent of Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake, the gate
of Mary's home-to-be: and in a big, bare parlour, with long windows and
a polished oak floor that reflected curious white birds and dragons of
an escutcheon on the ceiling, Reverend Mother had received them. She had
taken Mary on her lap; and when, after much talk about school and years
to come, the child's father had gone, shadowy, dark-robed women had
glided softly into the room. They had crowded round the little girl,
like children round a new doll, petting and murmuring over her: and she
had been given cake and milk, and wonderful preserved fruit, such as she
had never tasted.
Some of those dear women had gone since then, not as she was going, out
into an unknown, maybe disappointing, world, but to a place where
happiness was certain, according to their faith.
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