For myself, I confess I had a different feeling. I could not see what the Blessed Virgin should want with her smoke if she had gone away. Sister Sacristine's face being buried in her robe, I ventured to turn the mouth of the bottle to the light and even to smell of it. The inside was quite white and clean, and had a faint odor of musk. (Years afterward I found this very bottle, minus the gold ornaments, at a pawn shop in London and bought it for a trifle. My son says it is one of the little things they make in China by the thousand and sell for a few pence. It had been in possession of our house for a very long time, and was no doubt brought from the East by some pilgrim.) "Dear sister, do not cry so," said I, at last. "Perhaps Our Lady has herself taken away this precious relic that it might not be profaned." "You don't think it is a miracle, do you?" asked the sister, brightening up. "Perhaps so," I answered. "Dear Sister Postulant, how clever you are," said the old lady, wiping her eyes; "I should not have thought of that? Oh, if you could only take the veil here, you would be Superior before you were thirty. But, ah me! Nobody will ever put on the blessed veil in this house again." "Don't cry any more, dear sister," said I; "and do not let us stay any longer in this damp place; you will have the rheumatism again, and besides, the bell will ring in a minute and we ought to be in our cells." With much ado, I got her away and helped her to bed, for she was very feeble. I could not help wondering what would become of her. She had come from a distant part of the country and had no living relations that she knew of, and she was growing infirm and rather childish. It was our custom to assemble at six o'clock in the community room, to give the reverend mother an account of the work we had done and the books we had read the day before. When we were all together, the prioress told us the substance of our visitor's letter. It simply amounted to this, that there was no use in resistance, since it would only exasperate the king and his minister. The commissioners had orders to turn us all out of doors without ceremony in such a case; whereas, by giving way at once, we might be allowed to remain in our old home a few days, till we could provide ourselves with some other shelter. (He did not say how or where this provision was to be made.) If there was any sin in the case, which he did not think, he would give a full absolution. The whole might as well have been put into one sentence: "You will have to go, so you may as well go quietly."