She looked so fresh in her
plain black dress, so healthy and innocent, that Margaret could not
restrain a sob of envy. The child had so little to confess, a few puny
errors which must excite a smile on the lips of the gentle priest, and
her candid spirit was like snow. Margaret would have given anything to
kneel down and whisper in those passionless ears all that she suffered,
but the priest's faith and hers were not the same. They spoke a different
tongue, not of the lips only but of the soul, and he would not listen to
the words of an heretic.
A long procession of seminarists came in from the college which is under
the shadow of that great church, two by two, in black cassocks and short
white surplices. Many were tonsured already. Some were quite young.
Margaret watched their faces, wondering if they were tormented by such
agony as she. But they had a living faith to sustain them, and if some,
as was plain, were narrow and obtuse, they had at least a fixed rule
which prevented them from swerving into treacherous byways.
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