MARCH 15, 1862.]

SISTER ANNA'S PROBATION.

309

SISTER ANNA'S PROBATION.

A STORY IN SEVEN CHAPTERS. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

CHAPTER I.

WEDDINGS were as gay affairs among the gentry three centuries ago, as they ever are now among the aristocracy. The marriage of Eleanor, eldest daughter of Squire Atherstone, in a neighbourhood well-known to the new Queen, Anne, and to all the Boleyn family, was like the weddings in country houses of that day. It was grander than the royal marriage which had recently become known, for the King and Anne Boleyn had been united in the most secret way; but the celebration lasted only one day, and did not fill the heads of a whole country, as it would have done if noble families had been concerned in it. The Bishop who performed the ceremony was the bride's uncle; and her husband was a gentleman of good landed property—much richer than her father; and these were the nearest approaches to grandeur in the case.

The wedding-day was far on in October; but the season was so fine, that advantage was taken of the then modern custom of having the banquet in a garden banquet-hall—a long strip of dry

lawn, enclosed with posts and rails, and covered in with green branches from the woods. The evergreens had been fastened the evening before, and by daybreak, the brighter tints were inserted, in the form of red boughs of oak, yellow ash-sprays, and the light greens and crimsons of the broad vine leaves. Tressles and boards were laid throughout the whole length, and the family table-cloth was brought out. The device wrought upon it was not the most suitable, as it had been manufactured for occasions of baptism, and the Salutation was the event figured in it; but it must serve for this, the first wedding in the family, as it would have required too much both of time and money to have a new one wrought with the Cana Marriage upon it. As it was not long enough to cover the whole board, a second was lent by the Bishop, who had everything in good style; and the benches were placed, and the great almsdish, and most of the weightier articles of the banquet, before the guests began to arrive for the procession to church. The best knives with their glass hndles, and the silver spoons, and, indeed, all the

VOL. VI.

N

No. 142.

ONCE A WEEK.

[MA

plate, were kept back till dinner time, as the
whole neighbourhood was abroad, and would be
in and out of the banquet-hall during the morn-
ing.

While the serving-men were busy on the lawn,
and the grooms in getting the horses ready for the
passage to the church, and the cooks in the kit-
chen, constructing wonderful specimens of their
art, the bride was in her bower, attended by her
sisters—Anna, four years younger than herself,
and now seventeen, and Little Bet, the youngest,
and parents' darling. The other bridesmaids were
not yet admitted to the apartment. This was to
be the last, the very last, morning the sisters were
ever to be alone together; for if it was Eleanor's
marriage-day, it was the eve of Anna's virtual
betrothal. She was the destined spouse of Christ:
and she was the next morning to enter upon her
noviciate in the convent in which she and Eleanor
had been partly educated. Little Bet looked with
so much awe upon both sisters and their respective
engagements, that she had turned shy, and was
glad to be told that she might go and play among
the bridesmaids.

Eleanor's heart was very soft this morning. She
said, in answer to Anna's bright sympathy,

"It is not all joy, Anna. I am not so happy
as you. I am not so good; and how should I be
so happy?"

"Do not call me good," replied Anna. "You
cannot know whether I am good or not, in regard
to my vocation; and it is a much more certain
thing that you love Stephen Bridgman, and that
Stephen loves you; and that when such lovers
marry, with the good-will of all the world, they
must be happy, if there be happiness in the world.
Now, sit down before the mirror, and let me dress
your head."

"Time enough for that when the other maidens
come in. What I mean is, that I am so blessed in
my marriage that I feel how unworthy I have
always been of a higher lot. I could not devote
myself to religion. You can; and you desire
nothing else. You are secure of salvation; happy
girl! and the sacrifices you make for it cost you
no pain."

"Some are made to be wives, and some to be
nuns," replied Anna; "and one may not be more
wise or good than the other in being what she
ought."

"True; but it is exactly there that I feel how
low my mind is, compared with yours. Our
cousin Joan became a nun because from her child-
hood she wished it. We remember how she never
would play at anything but being in the convent;
and how all her romance was about being an
abbess, or a saint, or something great in that way.
It never was so with you. You never set your
will on being a saint—"

"Nor an abbess," said Anna. "I would not
be called Reverend Mother, and have her cares,
for the world."

"Just so: you have no passionate wishes, such
as are to the nun what love is to the bride: and
this is why I reverence your cheerfulness, even
more than your obedience. Our parents and my
uncle have brought you up to that vocation; and
you have accepted it, without any passion, and

without any regret. I honour you more than
Joan."

"My divine affections are cold, Eleanor. I
know what I ought to do. I hope to become
more worthy when the world is shut out. I have
no fears, because our uncle bids me have none;
and he knows best: but there is nothing in me so
worthy of praise as you think. I am clear in my
mind, and satisfied in my heart; and the higher
feelings will come, I doubt not. And now we
must think only of you :" and she pointed to the
hour-glass in which the sand had nearly run out.

Before they opened the door to some who were
growing impatient, the sisters made peace with
each other for any act or word which had, in all
their lives, given pain. As to the future, each
would fain have offered comfort and refuge to the
other in any of the turns of human life: but, as
Eleanor observed, there would be no turns of fate
for Anna: no adversity could overtake her: her
divine espousals once completed, her earthly lot
was simply the beginning of the heavenly here-
after. She herself might be driven by storms, or
spoiled by too bright a sunshine: but Anna was
secure in the calm peace of a devoted life, shel-
tered in the inviolate cloister. Still they promised
that if occasion should ever arise for aiding each
other, they would come together again as if this
parting had been but for a day.

Then the gay damsels outside the door were ad-
mitted, and the business of the toilet went on.
Anna's elegant dress was for this day and one other
only, as she would never again wear any but the
religious livery, except on the occasion of assuming
it. Her face was handsomer, some thought, than
her sister's; yet she spent few minutes and
fewer thoughts on herself; and it was merely for
form's sake that she was sprinkled from the holy-
water cup attached to the mirror, to secure her
from the perils of vanity. If the sprinkling had
been omitted, there was no fear of her remaining
long enough before the mirror to be in any danger
of seeing the face of the Evil One where her own
should be.

Both daughters appeared before the Dame, their
mother, on their way to the great hall; and there
she accompanied them, to greet the guests, while
the horses were brought up to the porch.

It was a gay procession; and the road was lined
with the country people from far and near. Some
took the opportunity of hawking their wares,
before, and after the procession went by; and
the Squire was not too much engrossed with the
care of his bride daughter, who rode beside him,
to cast a keen glance into every group of strangers
that he passed. He was a magistrate, and it con-
cerned him to cause every ballad-singer and every
sturdy beggar to be looked after, that the neigh-
bourhood might not be either corrupted or pillaged.
He remarked to his daughter, as other squires have
since done, that common knaves were becoming
more audacious than they had ever been before;
and he fancied he saw, in the rear of the crowd, a
seller of broadsheets who had offered, in the next
parish, a song about conjuring bread and water at
the mass and the font, and about the Pope's butter
and grease, meaning the holy unction. He would
have a watch kept in this parish against such ven-