re than could be helped--not
like some, who seem to think that nothing they say or do can possibly
hurt any one.

But it is no use saying such things to people. Once, I did say about a
tenth part of what I felt, when Mother Ada was present, and she turned
on me almost angrily.

"Sister Annora, you are scarce better than an idiot! Know you not that
confession to the priest is the same thing as to our Lord Himself?"

Well, it may be so, though it never feels like it: but I am sure the
priest is not the same thing. If I were a young mother with little
babes, I could never bring them to any priest I have known save one, and
that was a stranger who confessed us but for a week, some five years
gone, when the Lord Prior was ill. He was quite different from the
others: there was a soul behind his eyes--something human, not merely a
sort of metallic box which sounded when you rang it with another bit of
metal.

I never know why Margaret's eyes make me think of that man, but I
suppose it may be that there was the same sort of look in his. I am not
sure that I can put it into words. It makes me think, not of a dry
bough like my heart feels to be, but rather of a walled recluse--
something alive, very much alive, inside thick, hard, impenetrable walls
which you cannot enter, and it can never leave, but itself soft and
tender and sweet. And I fancy that people who look like that must have
had histories.

Another person troubles me beside that man and Margaret, and that is
Saint Peter's wife's mother. Because, if the holy Apostle had a wife's
mother, he must have had a wife; and what could a holy Apostle be doing
with a wife? I ventured once to ask Mother Ada how it was to be
explained, and she said that of course Saint Peter must have been
married before his conversion and calling by our Lord.

"And I dare be bound," added Mother Gaillarde, "that she was a shocking
vixen, or something bad, so as to serve for a thorn in the flesh to the
holy Apostle. He'd a deal better have been an unwedded man."

Well, some folks' relations are thorns in the flesh, I can quite
suppose. I should think Mother Gaillarde was, and that her being a nun
was a mercy to some man, so that she was told off to prick us and not
him. But is every body so? and are we all called to be thorns in the
flesh to somebody? I should not fancy being looked on by my relations
(if I were in the world) as nothing but a means of grace. It might be
good f