"Ah, Soeur Lucie, don't leave me. I can't be a nun; don't let
them make me a nun!"
There was something so pitiful and beseeching in her accent,
something so frail-looking in the little, white, imploring
hands, that Soeur Lucie's heart was touched. She came back
again.
"_Ecoute_, Madelon," she said, "you will be ill again to-morrow
if you talk so much; lie down now, and tell me what it is you
want. No one is going to make you a nun now, you know."
"No, not now, but by-and-by. Is it true that Aunt Therese said
I was to be made one?"
"Yes, that is true enough, I believe; but there is nothing to
be unhappy about in that," answered Soeur Lucie, who naturally
looked at things from a different point of view than
Madelon's. "There are many girls who would be glad of such a
chance; for you see, _mon enfant_, it is only because nothing
could be refused to our late sainted Superior, that it has
been arranged at all."
"Soeur Ursule said I should be a burthen," answered Madelon. "I
don't want to be a burthen; I only want to go away. Ah! why do
you keep me? I am miserable here; I always have been, and I
always shall be--always.
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