"I know it!" I answered! "I have thought of it a good many times. But then you know, Amabel, we have never been used to making rules, or deciding anything for ourselves, and somehow one does not know how to set about it." "But people must learn to make rules for themselves!" said Amabel, with that gentle decision which has always characterized her, when her mind is made up. "Only a very small part of the people in the world can live in convents: otherwise everything would be at a stand still. And those who live in the world, must often decide for themselves, and regulate their own conduct, and I don't see why we should not do so." "But, Amabel, we cannot observe all our own convent rules here!" I objected. "It would turn the house upside down, if we were to insist on having our meals at just such times as we used to at St. Jean." "Those things are not of much consequence!" answered Amabel. "For aught I know, one may as well eat at one time as another. But we can take certain hours for working for the poor, and others for profitable reading and so on. That would disturb nobody; and I am sure we should accomplish a great deal more, and feel better ourselves. Suppose we make a set of clothes for that poor little lame girl we went to see yesterday. It will soon be cold weather, and she will need a warm gown and woolen hose. Did you not see how thin her things were, and how carefully mended?" I agreed that it would be a very good plan, and then we sat a few minutes in silence. "There is one thing that puzzles me!" said I presently. "Every one says, that the religious life is the highest, and yet it is plain that only a few people out of all the world can enter it; because, as you say, the work of the world would come to a stand still, if nobody married and brought up children, and were shop-keepers and lawyers, and so on. But yet, it seems as if every one ought to serve God in the best possible way; and if the religious life is the best way, then every one ought to be religious. I do not understand it." "Every one has not a vocation!" said Amabel. "But if a vocation pleases God most, then every one ought to have it!" I persisted. "I have heard Mother Prudentia say, that the religious were like the cream that rises to the top of the milk!" said Amabel. "The skimmed milk may have its uses too." "The skimmed milk may have its uses, but I don't believe it is the best for the children!" I returned. "And that is what they get, poor things, if all the best women are to become nuns, and leave only the second-rate ones to become mothers and bring up the little ones." "Now you are reasoning, and using your own private judgment!" said Amabel, a little severely—"And you know the church forbids that."