Her greatest reward when she had been good was to
be allowed to join in the singing in the chapel--her greatest
punishment, to be banished from the evening services.
No need, however, to pursue this part of little Madelon's
history further. With the nuns' instruction, and the learning
of her catechism, vanished all that had distinguished her, in
this respect, from other children of her years and station.
She had learnt most of what can be learnt by such teaching,
and for her, as for others, there remained the verifying and
realization of these lessons, according to her capacity and
experience. Only, one may somehow feel sure, that to this
passionate, wilful little nature, religion would hardly
present itself as one simple sublime truth, high, pure, and
serene as the over-arching, all-embracing heaven, through
which the sun shines down on the clashing creeds of men; but
rather as a complex, many-sided problem, too often at variance
with her scheme of life, to be felt after through the medium
of conflicting emotions, to be worked out at last through what
doubts, questionings, with what perplexities, strivings,
yearnings, cries for light--along this in nowise singular path,
no need to follow our little Madelon.
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