I was a nurse by trade once. But
then what's the use? She'll only hev to go back to that old convent!"
And Melvyna clashed her pans together in her vexation. "Is she a good
Catholic, do you say? Heavens and earth, yes! She's _that_
religious--my! I couldn't begin to tell! She believes every word of all
that rubbish those old nuns have told her. She thinks it's beautiful to
be the bride of heaven; and, as far as that goes, I don't know but
she's right: 'tain't much the other kind is wuth," pursued Melvyna,
with fine contempt for mankind in general. "As to freedom, they've as
good as shoved her off their hands, haven't they? And I guess I can do
as I like any way on my own island. There wasn't any man about their
old convent, as I can learn, and so Miss Luke, she hain't been taught
to run away from 'em like most nuns. Of course, if they knew, they
would be sending over here after her: but they don't know, and them
priests in the village are too fat and lazy to earn their salt, let
alone caring what has become of her. I guess, if they think of her at
all, they think that she died, and that they buried her in their
crowded, sunken old graveyard. They're so slow and sleepy that they
forget half the time who they're burying! But Miss Luke, she ought to
go out in the air, and she is so afraid of everything that it don't do
her no good to go alone. I haven't got the time to go; and so, if you
will let her walk along the beach with you once in a while, it will do
her a sight of good, and give her an appetite--although what I want her
to hev an appetite for I am sure I don't know; for ef she gets well, of
course she'll go back to the convent. Want to go? _That_ she does.
She loves the place, and feels lost and strange anywhere else. She was
taken there when she was a baby, and it is all the home she has.
_She_ doesn't know they wanted to be red of her, and she wouldn't
believe it ef I was to tell her forty times. She loves them all dearly,
and prays every day to go back there. Spanish? Yes, I suppose so; she
don't know herself what she is exactly. She speaks English well though,
don't she? Yes, Sister St. Luke is her name; and a heathenish name it
is for a woman, in my opinion. _I_ call her Miss Luke. Convert
her? Couldn't any more convert her than you could convert a white gull,
and make a land bird of him. It's his nature to ride on the water and
be wet all the time. Towels couldn't dry him--not if you fetched a
thousand!"

"O