“We are told a great deal; but I am afraid I have never paid much attention. I only go to confession once a year. Maman insists on it. I do not like it,” said Alix. “Had the Stoics a _bon Dieu_ and a _Sainte Vierge_ to console them, then?” “Oh, no! no!—you very ignorant child!” Toppie was perforce smiling again, though Alix saw that she was distressed. “They lived very nobly without our faith to help them.—In my church we do not have your beautiful _Sainte Vierge_ to look to, you know.” “I know,” said Alix. “And I do not understand why you should leave her out. I like her better than _le bon Dieu_, I must confess. But then rectors could not feel as we do about a _Sainte Vierge_, could they?” “And why not?” “Could one feel like that and be married?” “Oh, you funny child!” Toppie was really laughing, and Alix, seeing how she amused her, laughed, too. This was so much better than talking about the dead.—“You mean a priest could not? We are quite different about that, too. But I see what you mean”—Toppie’s eyes dwelt on her—“and sometimes I think that you are right. I think, perhaps”—Toppie was grave now—“that the best life could be lived if one were quite free; with no close human ties. One could live better for God, and for humanity, then. And we have nuns in our church, too, Alix.” “Oh, but it is dreadful to be a nun!” Alix exclaimed. “I had an old great-aunt who was a nun. Grand-père’s sister. I was always taken to see her in her convent in Lyon. She came to a _grille_ and blessed me through it. She was like a sad old fish in an aquarium. One felt that her flesh must be cold. It would be death to me, such a life. And you? Can you really imagine it?” “Perhaps not an order like that, that shuts one quite away,” said Toppie; “but there are nursing and teaching orders. Yes, I can imagine it. Not while I have my father; but if I were alone.” “No, no! Do not imagine it!” Alix exclaimed, and there rose before her the memory of Giles’s face as he had watched Toppie yesterday evening. “Do not even imagine it. It is too dreadful. I am sorry that in your church you have nuns, too. That is foolish of you, I think, when you need not have them. It is different for priests. They have to administer the sacraments. But for a woman it is dreadful. Far, far better marry and be out in the world.” “Perhaps.” Toppie was smiling sadly at her, seeing her, it was evident, as quite a child, yet touched by her feeling. “But if all question of marrying is over, the situation alters. You could not understand while you are so young.—See, Alix, I want you to look at this.” She moved forward a fire-screen, a square of satin on a mahogany stand. “Are you interested in needlework? French girls do it so beautifully, I know. My mother embroidered this. She copied it from those old chairbacks. Do look at them. Her grandmother did those.”