"
"Your hand upon it!" I cried, leaning still farther forward. She laughed
at the enthusiastic warmth of my manner, and gave me her hand.
"It is a promise!" I exclaimed, and was about to raise her fingers to my
lips when she quickly drew them away.
"I declare," she said, rising as she spoke, "I did not suppose that you
would forget that I am the Mother Superior of the House of Martha."
"Excuse me," I replied, "but you are not that; with your own mouth you
have assured me that you are an Interpolation, and there is nothing in a
social or moral law which forbids a suitable expression of gratitude to
an Interpolation."
"Sir," said she, "I think I have seen quite as much as is necessary of
the view which you asked me here to look upon."
XXVI.
MOTHER ANASTASIA.
In the half hour during which I remained alone upon the bluff, awaiting
the return of Walkirk and the fishing party, I thought as much of the
lady with whom I had been talking as the lady of whom I had been
talking.
"How is it possible," I asked myself, "that this gentlewoman, warm with
her rich blooded beauty, alive with ripe youth, born to delight the soul
of man and fire his heart, should content herself to be a head nurse in
a hospital; to wander in an unsightly disguise among dismal sick-beds;
to direct the management of measles-refuges; to shut herself up in a
bare-floored, cold-walled institution with narrow-minded Sister Sarahs;
to be, in a word, the Mother Superior of the House of Martha?"
That she should occupy this position seemed to me a crime.
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