JOSEPHTE.
"Sister Elisâ," lisped Rudolphe, the tiny boy. (In the garden the
children of the farmer of the domain, and of Pierre, were playing
together.) "Mr. Ch'ysl' has told me he was a Canadian."
"Did he say so, _mon fin_?" asked motherly ten-year-old Elisâ, picking a
"belle p'tite" flower for the little fellow, whom she held by the hand.
"He's not Canadian," put in the large boy, Henri, with contempt
befitting his twelve years of experience. "Because he doesn't speak
French. He's an English."
"Speaking French don't make a Canadian," answered Elisâ. "The Honorable
says every one who is native in Canada is a Canadian, speak he French,
speak he English."
"O, well--the Honorable--the Honorable--" retorted Henri, testily.
While this went on, the voice of Josephte could be heard singing low and
happy, in a corner of the walk of pines which surrounded the garden and
the back of the grounds:
"Eglantine est la fleur que j'aime
La violette est ma couleur...."[H]
Next, lower, but as if stirred softly by the lingering strain rather
than feeling its sadness:
[Footnote H: "Eglantine is the flower I love,
My color is the violet"]
"....Dans le souci tu vois l'emblème
Des chagrins de mon triste coeur."[I]
[Footnote I:
"....The symbol shall the emblem prove
Of my sad heart and eyelids wet"]
When she got thus far, she stopped and called out, cheerfully:--"Come
along, my little ones; come along; come along and recite your duties!"
And in a trice they all raced in and were panting in a row about her.
Thus one sultry afternoon, Mr. Chrysler found her sitting, book and
sewing on her lap and only a rosary about her neck to relieve the modest
black dress, whose folds,
"Plain in their neatness,"
accorded well with her indefinably gentle bearing. Seeing him, she
stopped and dropped her head, like a good convent maiden.
"Procedez, ma'amselle," he said, nodding benevolently. "Do not disturb
yourself."
"But, monsieur," she said, and blushed in confusion.
"Go on. I shall be interested in these young people's lessons."
"As monsieur wishes," she replied. "Now, my little ones, your
catechism."
They ranged themselves in a line.
"Elisâ, thee first; repeat the Commandments of God."
Elisâ commenced a rhyming paraphrase of the Ten Commandments.
"Ah, no, cherie,--more reverence. Say it as to the Holy Virgin."
Elisâ went through it in a soft manner to the end.
"Rudolphe; the Seven Commandments of the Church."
The childish accents of the little one repeated them:--
1. Mass on Sundays them shalt hear
And on feasts commanded thee.
2. Once at least in every year,
Must thy sins confessed be.
3. Thy Creator take at least
At Easter with humility.
4. And keep holy every feast,
Whereof thou shalt have decree.
5. Quatre-temps, Vigils, fasts are met,
And in Lent entirely.
6. Fridays flesh thou shalt not eat;
Saturdays the same shall be.
7. Church's every tithe and fee
Thou shalt pay her faithfully.
"Henri, what is the Church which Jesus Christ has established?"
"The Church which Jesus Christ has established," said he stoutly, "is
the Church Catholic, Apostolic and Roman."
The next was Henri's eight year old sister.
"Can anyone be saved outside of the Church Catholic, Apostolic and
Roman?"
"No," (solemnly,) "out of the Church there is no salvation."
"Say now the Act of Faith all together."
"My God," said the children in unison, "I believe firmly all that the
Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches, because it is you who have
said it and you are Truth Itself."
"You may rest yourselves."
Chrysler was most curious regarding what he heard thus instilled. The
thought struck him: "There's something like that, in our Calvinism too."
"My dear demoiselle," he said aloud, "as I am a Protestant--"
"A Protestant, sir!" She regarded him with visibly extraordinary
emotions, and involuntarily crossed herself.
"It is impossible!"
It was the first time a Protestant and she had ever been face to face.
"Monsieur," she appealed in agitation "why do you not enter the bosom of
the true Church?"
"Must one not act as he believes?"
"But, sir," said the dear girl, painfully, still regarding him with
great wonder, "on studying true doctrine, the saints will make you
believe; the priest can baptize you. He will be delighted, I am certain,
to save a soul from destruction." She could not restrain the flow of a
tear.
"My child," Chrysler said, for he saw that curiosity had led him too
far: "Leave this to God, who is greater than you or I and knows every
heart."
"Monsieur, then, believes in God!" Her present astonishment was equal to
that before.
The rising voices of the children relieved him. That of Elisâ, who sat
in a ring of the rest, nodding her head decidedly and rhythmically, was
conspicuous:
"I am going to join the Sisterhood of the Holy Rosary and go to church
early, early, often, often, four times a day, and pray, pray, and say my
paters and my aves, and gain my indulgences, and be more devout than
Sister Jesus of God; and then I am going to take the novitiate and wear
a beautiful white veil and fast every day, and at last--at last--I am
going to be a Religieuse."
"What name will you take, Elisâ?"
"I have decided," the little convent girl responded, "to take the name
of 'Sister St. Joseph of the Cradle.'"
"Mais, that is pretty, that! But I prefer 'St. Mary of the Saviour.'"
"What are you going to be?" Elisâ asked of the smaller girl.
"I will be--I will be--I will take my first communion."
"I have taken it already," replied Elisâ, with superiority.
"Henri! Henri! it is your turn."
"I am going to be an advocate."
"And I am going to be a Rouge," replied little Rudolphe.
"Hah,--we are all Rouges," replied Henri.
"O, well--I will be, then--Monseigneur, like Monsieur Chamilly."
The garden stretched behind the manor-house. Along its paths these
children delighted to explore the motherly currant-bushes. Old-fashioned
flowers stocked it, and, as Chrysler walked away among them, they
reminded him of the simple gardens of his childhood before the showy
house-plant era had modernized our grounds. There were erect groups and
rows of hollyhocks; monkshood offered its clusters of blue caps; striped
tulips and crimson poppies flourished in beds of generous shapes;
delicate astors, rich dahlias, and neat little bachelors' buttons peeped
in crowds from green freshnesses. This was one of Madame's domains,
where she walked, weeded and superintended every morning in broad straw
hat and apron; and it was to Chrysler one of the attractions of the
Manoir.