"
"Not if YOU request her admission of Mere de la Nativite: the Lady
Superior will refuse no application of yours, Bigot."
"Won't she! but she will! The Mere de la Nativite considers me a
sad reprobate, and has already, when I visited her parlor, read me a
couple of sharpest homilies on my evil ways, as she called them.
The venerable Mere de la Nativite will not carry coals, I assure
you, Angelique."
"As if I did not know her!" she replied impatiently. "Why, she
screens with all her authority that wild nephew of hers, the Sieur
Varin! Nothing irritates her like hearing a bad report of him, and
although she knows all that is said of him to be true as her
breviary, she will not admit it. The soeurs converses in the laundry
were put on bread and water with prayers for a week, only for
repeating some gossip they had heard concerning him."
"Ay! that is because the venerable Mere Superior is touchy on the
point of family,--but I am not her nephew, voila la differance!" as
the song says.
"Well! but you are her nephew's master and patron," replied
Angelique, "and the good Mere will strain many points to oblige the
Intendant of New France for sake of the Sieur Varin.
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