Oh, how my heart wanted to call her something sweeter! _It_ said, My darling, my beloved, mine own little sister! But my tongue was all so unwonted to utter such words that I could not persuade it to say them. Yet more to my surprise, Margaret came out of the window,--came and knelt at my feet, and laid her clasped hands on my knee. "Hadst thou said `Ay,' I should have spoken no more. As thou art not-- Annora, is it true that we twain had one mother?" Something in Margaret's tone helped me. I took the clasped hands in mine own. "It is true, mine own Sister," I said. "`Sister!' and `Mother!'" she said. "They are words that mean nothing at all to me. I wonder if God meant them to mean nothing to us? Could we not have been as good women, and have served Him as well, if we had dwelt with our own blood, as other maidens do, or even if--" Her voice died away. "Margaret," I said, "Mother Ada would say it was wicked, but mine heart is for ever asking the same questions." "Is it?" she said eagerly. "O Annora! then thou knowest! I thought, maybe, thou shouldst count it wicked, and chide me for indulging such thoughts." "How could I chide any one, sinner as I am!" said I. "Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! But thou wilt see I am no saint, nor like to be." "Despise thee!" she said. "Dear heart, wert thou to know how much further I have gone!" I looked on her with some alarm. "Margaret! we are professed religious women." [Note 1.] "Religious women!" she answered. "If thou gild a piece of wood, doth it become gold? Religious women are not women that wear black and white, cut in a certain fashion: they are women that set God above all things. And have I not done that? Have I not laid mine heart upon His altar, a living sacrifice, because I believed He called me to break that poor quivering thing in twain? And will He judge me that did His will, to the best of my power and knowledge, because now and then a human sob breaks from my woman-heart, by reason that I am not yet an angel, and that He did not make me a stone? I do not believe it. I will not believe it. He that gave His own Son to die for man can be no Moloch delighting in human suffering--caring not how many hearts be crushed so long as there be flowers upon His altar, how many lives be made desolate so long as there be choirs to sing antiphons! Annora, it is not God who does such things, but men." I was doubtful how to answer, seeing I could not understand what she meant. I only said-- "Yet God permits men to do them."