It was a wonderful new world that opened to me during those two months. As I said, I never in my life before had any deep convictions of religion. I had gone through the usual routine in the convent just as I worked my lace and sewed my white seam, but that was all. I had a great dread of death, and when any thing brought it home to me, I would redouble my observances and try to feel as I supposed really religious people felt. But it was all outside of me, so to speak. I believed in God, of course, but it was as a stern judge I thought of him—not by any means as a tender Father. The blessed Virgin was, indeed, kind and gentle, and if I coaxed her enough, she would perhaps command her son to be good to me at that dreadful day of doom. But ever and always in the background of my mind—that is, after I began to think at all—was that fearful specter of Purgatory, the dread ordeal which must be passed before I could hope for the smallest taste of the bliss of Paradise. I do not mean to say that this was the case with all of our number. Some sweet souls there were who sucked the honey in spite of the thorn, and albeit sorely cumbered and distressed by the barriers which the pride and folly of men had piled in their way, did find access to the very Mercy Seat. Some found a real satisfaction in piling up prayer upon prayer; observance upon observance, thinking they were thereby heaping up merit not only for themselves but their friends. Others, and they were the most, were content to perform such tasks as they could not escape, in as easy a manner as possible, trusting to their religious profession and the offices of their patron saint to help them out at the last. I had all my life been curious about books, ever since a chit of five years old, I had tumbled off a joint-stool whereon I had climbed to look at the great volume of the Morte d'Arthur which lay in the window-seat in the hall. I got a sound switching across my fingers for meddling, but neither the switching nor the tumble cured me of my hunger for books. This hunger had very little to feed it at Dartford, but it never died out, and I used to read over and over the few volumes we had till I knew them by heart.