"So it would, I think, if she went about it in a different way," replied Cicely, "but you see she makes a penance of that as she does of everything else, and somehow the poor folk seem to feel that she does, and that spoils it all. Now when I run about among them, I just do it in a neighborly way; and I gossip a bit with this one about her baby, and with that one about the new gown and kirtle she is making for her little maid, or her old mother maybe; and I hear the old folk tell their old tales about the times that were so much better than these, you know; and really I think I enjoy it as much as they do, and I come home feeling better, and disposed to be thankful for all the good things about me. But Anne, she takes no interest in all their little plans, and unless she can do something directly for them, she will not stay. She sometimes talks to them about their religious duties, and blames them for not going oftener to church, but she never sits down for a bit of neighborly talk. So they don't like her and don't feel at ease with her, and she feels that, and it makes her colder than ever." "I understand," said Jack. "She does it like task work, and not because she loves God and her neighbor. She seems to think God is a hard master and a harsh judge, and not a kind loving Father. I wish she could see things differently." CHAPTER XI. NEW PROJECTS. Jack and Sister Barbara were soon on the best of terms, and he learned to love the kind genial lady as well as if he had known her all his life. He was both amused and touched to see how she enjoyed the ease and freedom of her present life, and with what a zest she entered into all the family plans. She was very particular in observing all the canonical hours, and she fasted on Fridays, as indeed they all did, but her fasts were very different matters from poor Anne's, who ate hardly enough at any time to keep soul and body together. Sister Barbara seemed to think it quite enough to abstain from flesh, like the rest of the family, and she cooked many nice little messes for fast-days, telling Anne when she objected that they were just such as they always had in the convent. She took a deep interest in all the children in the neighborhood, especially in the babies, and showed a remarkable skill in tending the latter, which certainly must have come by nature. "For, do you know," she said one day, "I never saw a little babe near at hand till I saw Dame Burton's?" "Sure you never were meant for a nun, madam," said Master Lucas somewhat bluntly. "You should have married some gallant gentleman, and had a household of your own. You would have ruled it well, I warrant you." Anne looked shocked, as she was apt to do at her father's blunt speeches and sallies; but Sister Barbara sighed and smiled as she answered— "Maybe so, maybe so, Master Lucas. I had little voice in the matter, anyhow. I grew up in the convent, and never knew any other life, so I took the veil naturally when I came of age."