'Displeasing!'--said the nun, with emphasis.--'We are idle talkers;
we do not weigh the meaning of the words we use; DISPLEASING is a poor
word. I will go pray.' As she said this she rose from her seat, and with
a profound sigh quitted the room. 'What can be the meaning of this?' said Emily, when she was gone. 'It is nothing extraordinary,' replied sister Frances, 'she is often
thus; but she had no meaning in what she says. Her intellects are at
times deranged. Did you never see her thus before?'
'Never,' said Emily. 'I have, indeed, sometimes, thought, that there was
the melancholy of madness in her look, but never before perceived it in
her speech. Poor soul, I will pray for her!'
'Your prayers then, my daughter, will unite with ours,' observed the
lady abbess, 'she has need of them.'
'Dear lady,' said Mademoiselle Feydeau, addressing the abbess, 'what is
your opinion of the late Marquis? The strange circumstances, that have
occurred at the chateau, have so much awakened my curiosity, that I
shall be pardoned the question. What was his imputed crime, and what the
punishment, to which sister Agnes alluded?'
'We must be cautious of advancing our opinion,' said the abbess, with
an air of reserve, mingled with solemnity, 'we must be cautious of
advancing our opinion on so delicate a subject. I will not take upon me
to pronounce, that the late Marquis was criminal, or to say what was
the crime of which he was suspected; but, concerning the punishment our
daughter Agnes hinted, I know of none he suffered. She probably alluded
to the severe one, which an exasperated conscience can inflict. Beware,
my children, of incurring so terrible a punishment--it is the purgatory
of this life! The late Marchioness I knew well; she was a pattern to
such as live in the world; nay, our sacred order need not have blushed
to copy her virtues! Our holy convent received her mortal part; her
heavenly spirit, I doubt not, ascended to its sanctuary!'
As the abbess spoke this, the last bell of vespers struck up, and
she rose. 'Let us go, my children,' said she, 'and intercede for the
wretched; let us go and confess our sins, and endeavour to purify our
souls for the heaven, to which SHE is gone!'
Emily was affected by the solemnity of this exhortation, and,
remembering her father, 'The heaven, to which HE, too, is gone!' said
she, faintly, as she suppressed her sighs, and followed the abbess and
the nuns to the chapel.