"You have been playing?"
"Yes, playing at
"`Carry my tig
To Poynton Brig--'
"and Erneburg gave me a tig, and I can't give it back. Mo--other
Gaillarde won't le-et me!" with a fresh burst of sobs.
"Now, whatever is all this fuss?" asked Mother Gaillarde, from the other
end of the room. "Sister, do keep these children quiet."
But Mother Ada came to us.
"What is the matter?" she said in her icicle voice.
Little Damia was crying too much to speak, and I had to tell her that
the children had been playing at a game in which they touched one
another if they could, and it was deemed a terrible disgrace to be
touched without being able to return it.
"What nonsense!" said Mother Ada. "They had better not be allowed to
play at such silly games. Go to sleep immediately, Damia: do you hear?
Give over crying this minute."
I wondered whether Mother Ada thought that joy and sorrow could as
easily be stopped as a tap could be turned to stop water. Little Damia
could not stop crying so instantly as this: and Mother Ada told her if
she did not, she should have no fruit to-morrow: which made her cry all
the more. Mother Gaillarde then marched up, and gave the poor child an
angry shake: and that produced screams instead of sobbing.
"Blessed saints, these children!" said Mother Gaillarde. "I wish there
never were any! With all reverence I say it, I do think if the Almighty
could have created men and women grown-up, it would have saved a world
of trouble. But I suppose He knows best.--Damia, stop that noise! If
not, I'll give thee another shake."
Little Damia burrowed down beneath the bed-clothes, from which
long-drawn sobs shook the bed at intervals: but she did contrive to stop
screaming. Mother Gaillard left the dormitory, with another sarcastic
remark on the dear delight of looking after children: and the minute
after, Mother Alianora entered it from the other end. She came up to
where I stood, by Damia's bed.
"Not all peace here?" she said, with her tranquil smile. "Little Damia,
what aileth thee?"
As soon as her voice was heard, little Damia's head came up, and in a
voice broken by sobs, she told her tale.
"Come, I think that can be put right," saith the Mother, kindly. "Lie
still, my child, till I come to thee again."
She went away, and in a few minutes returned, with Erneburg. Of course
Mother Alianora can go where the Sisters cannot.
"Little Damia," she said, smiling, as she laid her hand on the child's
head, "I bring Erneburg to return thee thy `tig.' Now canst thou go to
sleep in peace?"
"Yes, thank you, Mother. You are good!" said little Damia gratefully,
looking quite relieved, as Erneburg kissed her.
"Such a little thing!" said Mother Alianora, with a smile. "Yet thou
art but a little thing thyself."
They went away, and I tarried a moment to light the blessed Mother's
lamp, and to say the Hail Mary with the children. When I came
down-stairs, the first voice I heard in the recreation-room was Mother
Gaillarde's.
"Well, if ever I did hear such a story! Sister, you ruin those
children!"
"Nay," saith Mother Alianora's gentle voice, "surely not, my Sister, by
a little kindness such as that."
"Kindness, indeed! Before I'd have given in to such nonsense!"
"Sister Gaillarde, maybe some matters that you and I would weep over may
seem full as foolish to the angels and to God. And to Him it may be of
more import to comfort a little child in its trouble than to pass a
statute of Parliament. Ah, me! if God waited to comfort us till we were
wise, little comforting should any of us have. But it is written, `Like
whom his mother blandisheth, thus I will comfort you,'--and mothers do
not wait for children to be discreet before they comfort them. At
least, my mother did not."
Such a soft, sweet, tender light came into her eyes as made my heart
ache. My mother might have comforted me so.
Just then I caught Margaret's look. I do not know what it was like: but
quite different from Mother Alianora's. Something strained and
stretched, as it were, like a piece of canvas when you strain it on a
frame for tapestry-work. Then, all at once, the strain gave way and
broke up, and calm, holy peace came instead. If I might talk with
Margaret!
Mother Alianora is ill in the Infirmary. And I may not go to her.