'Yes, sir,' the visitor gently replied. 'I speak to the pupils in my own tongue. I know no other. But we have sisters of other countries—English, German, Irish. They all speak their proper language.'
The gentleman gave a smile. 'Has my daughter been under the care of one of the Irish ladies?' And then, as he saw that his visitors suspected a joke, though failing to understand it, 'You're very complete,' he instantly added.
'Oh, yes, we're complete. We've everything, and everything's of the best.'
'We have gymnastics,' the Italian sister ventured to remark. 'But not dangerous.'
'I hope not. Is that YOUR branch?' A question which provoked much candid hilarity on the part of the two ladies; on the subsidence of which their entertainer, glancing at his daughter, remarked that she had grown.
'Yes, but I think she has finished. She'll remain—not big,' said the French sister.
'I'm not sorry. I prefer women like books—very good and not too long. But I know,' the gentleman said, 'no particular reason why my child should be short.'
The nun gave a temperate shrug, as if to intimate that such things might be beyond our knowledge. 'She's in very good health; that's the best thing.'
'Yes, she looks sound.' And the young girl's father watched her a moment. 'What do you see in the garden?' he asked in French.
'I see many flowers,' she replied in a sweet, small voice and with an accent as good as his own.
'Yes, but not many good ones. However, such as they are, go out and gather some for ces dames.'
The child turned to him with her smile heightened by pleasure. 'May I, truly?'
'Ah, when I tell you,' said her father.
The girl glanced at the elder of the nuns. 'May I, truly, ma mere?'
'Obey monsieur your father, my child,' said the sister, blushing again.
The child, satisfied with this authorisation, descended from the threshold and was presently lost to sight. 'You don't spoil them,' said her father gaily.
'For everything they must ask leave. That's our system. Leave is freely granted, but they must ask it.'
'Oh, I don't quarrel with your system; I've no doubt it's excellent. I sent you my daughter to see what you'd make of her. I had faith.'
'One must have faith,' the sister blandly rejoined, gazing through her spectacles.
'Well, has my faith been rewarded What have you made of her?'
The sister dropped her eyes a moment. 'A good Christian, monsieur.'
Her host dropped his eyes as well; but it was probable that the movement had in each case a different spring. 'Yes, and what else?'
He watched the lady from the convent, probably thinking she would say that a good Christian was everything; but for all her simplicity she was not so crude as that. 'A charming young lady—a real little woman—a daughter in whom you will have nothing but contentment.'
'She seems to me very gentille,' said the father. 'She's really pretty.'
'She's perfect. She has no faults.'
'She never had any as a child, and I'm glad you have given her none.'
'We love her too much,' said the spectacled sister with dignity.
'And as for faults, how can we give what we have not? Le couvent n'est pas comme le monde, monsieur. She's our daughter, as you may say. We've had her since she was so small.'
'Of all those we shall lose this year she's the one we shall miss most,' the younger woman murmured deferentially.
'Ah, yes, we shall talk long of her,' said the other. 'We shall hold her up to the new ones.' And at this the good sister appeared to find her spectacles dim; while her companion, after fumbling a moment, presently drew forth a pocket-handkerchief of durable texture.
'It's not certain you'll lose her; nothing's settled yet,' their host rejoined quickly; not as if to anticipate their tears, but in the tone of a man saying what was most agreeable to himself. 'We should be very happy to believe that. Fifteen is very young to leave us.'
'Oh,' exclaimed the gentleman with more vivacity than he had yet used, 'it is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could keep her always!'
'Ah, monsieur,' said the elder sister, smiling and getting up, 'good as she is, she's made for the world. Le monde y gagnera.'
'If all the good people were hidden away in convents how would the world get on?' her companion softly enquired, rising also.
This was a question of a wider bearing than the good woman apparently supposed; and the lady in spectacles took a harmonising view by saying comfortably: 'Fortunately there are good people everywhere.'
'If you're going there will be two less here,' her host remarked gallantly.
For this extravagant sally his simple visitors had no answer, and they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large bunches of roses—one of them all white, the other red.
