simpleton,
tell me what has happened!"

She was laughing. I had hardly ever heard Aunt Bridget laugh before. But
her vexation soon got the better of her merriment.

"His lordship's letter arrived in the middle of the night and nearly
frightened us out of our senses. Your father was for coming away
straight, and it would have been worse for you if he had. But I said:
'No, this is work for a woman, I'll go,' and here I am. And now tell me,
what in the name of goodness does this ridiculous trouble mean?"

It was hard to say anything on such a subject under such circumstances,
especially when so challenged, but Aunt Bridget, without waiting for my
reply, proceeded to indicate the substance of my husband's letter.

From this I gathered that he had chosen (probably to save his pride) to
set down my resistance to ignorance of the first conditions of
matrimony, and had charged my father first and Aunt Bridget afterwards
with doing him a shocking injustice in permitting me to be married to
him without telling me what every girl who becomes a wife ought to know.

"But, good gracious," said my Aunt Bridget, "who would have imagined you
_didn't_ know. I thought every girl in the world knew before she put up
her hair and came out of short frocks. My Betsy did, I'm sure of that.
And to think that you--you whom we thought so cute, so cunning. . . .
Mary O'Neill, I'm ashamed of you. I really, really am! Why, you goose"
(Aunt Bridget was again trying to laugh), "how did you suppose the world
went on?"

The coarse ridicule of what was supposed to be my maidenly modesty cut
me like a knife, but I could not permit myself to explain, so my Aunt
Bridget ran on talking.

"I see how it has been. It's the fault of that Reverend Mother at the
convent. What sort of a woman is she? Is she a woman at all, I wonder,
or only a piece of stucco that ought to be put up in a church corner! To
think she could have you nine years and never say one word about. . . .
Well, well! What has she been doing with you? Talking about the
mysteries, I suppose--prayers and retreats and novenas, and the
spiritual bridegroom and the rest of it, while all the while. . . . But
you must put the convent out of your head, my girl. You are a married
woman now. You've got to think of your husband, and a husband isn't a
spiritual bridegroom I can tell you. He's flesh and blood, that's what a
husband is, and you can't expect _him_ to spend his time talking about
eternity