"She is a Protestant, you know, and I suppose our ways are as strange to her, as hers are to us," replied Amabel. "Of course if they think they are right, they must believe we are wrong." "But, Amabel, it seems that your aunts are Protestants," said I, for Mrs. Thorpe had told us as much. "How shall we get on with them?" "It will be time enough to decide that when we are there," replied Amabel. "I don't think Protestants are all bad, Lucy. My mother was one, and so was yours, and I am sure she never taught us anything that was not good." "Mother Superior says no Protestants will be saved except by reason of their invincible ignorance," I remarked, "or unless they are capable of acts of pure love to God, which are very difficult even to good Catholics. And besides, Amabel, our 'examination of conscience' says it is a betrayal of the Catholic Church to say that all religions are good, and that a man may be saved in one as well as another, and that it is a great sin even to read a heretical book or hear a heretical preacher. Now suppose that your aunts should insist on our going to the English Church with her—what shall we do?" "We shall see when the time comes," said Amabel. "I never found much use in making up my mind beforehand. Either the thing you expect never comes, or else it comes in such a different way that all your preparations are of no use at all." This was Amabel's way, and has been all her life, and certainly it has seemed to serve her very well. I have never seen any one pass through with so little of what we call fretting. She has had many serious troubles, but very few worries, while I must confess I have generally had my troubles three times over—before they came, while they lasted, and after they were gone. After supper Mother Prudentia came to us with a very grave and sad face. "The English lady is to go to Mother Superior, in her own room, at once," said she. "In her own room?" I repeated, very much surprised. The "Community Rooms" in a convent are sacred from any profane foot, so that one may be a pupil in such a house a dozen years and never enter them. The peculiar circumstances of our family placed Amabel and myself on a somewhat different footing from ordinary pupils, so that we were treated rather as postulants, but even we had never been in the rooms which opened from the Superior's parlor. "Yes," answered the mother sadly. "Dear Mother Superior is not able to go any farther than the outer room. She tried going to the parlor but she was not able. I fear she will never descend those stairs again. You may call madame—I cannot say her name for my life—and lead her to madame's room."