Why, there it was! The Blessed Virgin's cousin was named Elizabeth, too. Of course they were friends; perhaps they were very fond of each other; only St. Elizabeth was so much too old. Could one have a real friend, years older than one's self? My mind was wandering over this aspect of the case while I pattered my responses, and my pearl beads--not half so pretty as Elizabeth's coral ones--slipped quickly through my fingers. When we had finished the five decades, and had said the _De profundis_ for the dead, there was still time on our hands. The chapel bell had not yet rung. We walked for a few minutes in silence, and then I held up my rosary as a suggestion that we should begin the sorrowful mysteries. But Elizabeth shook her head. "Let's have a little serious conversation," she said. Not Balaam, when he heard the remonstrance of his ass, not Albertus Magnus, when the brazen head first opened its lips and spoke, was more startled and discomfited than I. Such a proposal shook my moral sense to its foundations. But Elizabeth's light blue eyes--curiously light, by contrast with her dark skin and hair--were raised to mine with perfect candour and good faith. It was plain that she did not hold herself a temptress. "A little _serious_ conversation," she repeated with emphasis. For a moment I hesitated. Three speechless days made the suggestion a very agreeable one, and I was in the habit of consenting to whatever Elizabeth proposed. But conversation, even serious conversation, was a daring innovation for a retreat, and I was not by nature an innovator. Then suddenly a happy thought came to me. I had brought along my Ursuline Manual (in those days we went about armed with all our spiritual weapons), and I opened it at a familiar page. "Let's find out our predominant passions," I said. Elizabeth consented joyfully. Her own prayer-book was French, a _Paroissien Romain_, and the predominant passions had no place in it. She was evidently flattered by the magnificence of the term, as applied to her modest transgressions. It was something to know--at twelve--that one was possessed of a passion to predominate. "We'll skip the advice in the beginning?" she said. I nodded, and Elizabeth, plunging, as was her wont, into the heart of the matter, read with impressive solemnity:-- "The predominant passion of many young people is pride, which never fails to produce such haughtiness of manner and self-sufficiency as to render them equally odious and ridiculous. Incessantly endeavouring to attract admiration, and become the sole objects of attention, they spare no pains to set themselves off, and to outdo their companions. By their conceited airs, their forwardness, their confidence in their own opinions, and neglect or contempt of that timid, gentle, retiring manner, so amiable and attractive in youth, they defeat their own purpose, and become as contemptible as they aim at being important."