I spent the rest of the day dully enough, but a little consoled by the gift of a second piece of spice cake and the company of my doll, which the good mother's relenting heart allowed me, after I had sobbingly confessed that I was very sorry, and would never do so again. I think she would even have let me get up but for the fear of my taking cold and having consumption. Mother Prudentia was fully convinced that all English women died of consumption, sooner or later. To this day, the smell of a bit of fresh spice cake will bring that whole scene before my eyes. I can see the arched cloisters surrounding the paved court, with the old fountain well in the centre. I can look through the great pointed doorway and see a second court, with a tall cross in the centre surrounded by low grassy mounds, where generation after generation of the sisters rested in peace. I can smell the odor of the roses which grew so luxuriantly in the corner by the little postern door which led into the church, and the wild lavender and the rosemary, which had sprung up in those places—alas, very many—where the marble pavement had gone to decay, or the cloister walls and arches were in ruins. I can feel the very brooding, yet not stifling heat of the summer day in June, and breathe the air smelling not only of the aromatic herbs which so abound in that country, but also of the fresh breath of the sea. I may say this association was the beginning of these memoirs. For as I was speaking of it to my dear Lady the last time she came to visit me, she thought a little, and said she to me: "Lucy, why don't you write out the recollections of those days? They would be interesting to the children, by and by. You are a Corbet on both sides, and you know the Corbets have always been famous for writing chronicles. Come, take pen in hand, and have something to read me when I come again." "And what is to become of my children's lessons and clothes?" I asked. "Let the children mend their own clothes. It will be all the better for them, and you have no need to be doing such work at all. Anne Penberthy ought to take all that off your hands." "And so she does," I answered, seeing that, by making use of the first excuse that came to hand, I had given Amabel a false impression. "Anne is a good girl and a faithful, if one ever lived; but I must have something to do when I sit down, and I tire of knitting, after a while." "Well, then, try writing, for a change," said my Lady, smiling; and then she began to talk of one of the girls who had fallen and hurt her knee (it was Bridget Polwarth, of course—trust her for that, poor child!), and no more was said at that time.