There were days which she spent entirely in the seclusion of her own room, and then Virginie alone was allowed entrance.  The old Frenchwoman would come in with some special little dish she had cooked with her own hands, hoping to tempt her beloved mistress’s appetite—­which in these days had dwindled to such insignificant proportions that Virginie was in despair.

“Thou must eat,” she would say.

“I don’t want anything—­really, Virginie,” Magda would insist.

“And wherefore not?” demanded Virginie indignantly one day.  “Thou art not one of the Sisters of Penitence that thou must needs deny thyself the good things of life.”

Magda looked up with a sudden flash of interest.

“The Sisters of Penitence, Virginie?  Who are they?  Tell me about them.”

Virginie set a plate containing an epicurean omelet triumphantly in front of her.

“Eat that, then, cherie, while I tell thee of them,” she replied with masterly diplomacy.  “It is good, the omelet.  Virginie made it for thee with her own hands.”

Magda laughed faintly in spite of herself and began upon the omelet obediently.

“Very well, then.  Tell me about the Sisters of Penitence.  Are they always being sorry for what they’ve done?”

“It is a sisterhood, mademoiselle cherie, for those who would withdraw themselves from the world.  They are very strict, I believe, the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly.  Me, I cannot see why we should leave the beautiful world the bon dieu has put us into.  For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not meant us to stay there!”

“Perhaps—­they are happier—­out of the world, Virginia,” suggested Magda slowly.

“But my niece, who was in the sisterhood a year, was glad to come out again.  Though, of course, she left her sins behind her, and that was good.  It is always good to get rid of one’s sins, n’est-ce pas?”

“Get rid of your sins?  But how can you?”

“If one does penance day and night, day and night, for a whole long year, one surely expiates them!  And then”—­with calm certainty—­“of course one has got rid of them.  They are wiped off the slate and one begins again.  At least, it was so with my niece.  For when she came out of the sisterhood, the man who had betrayed her married her, and they have three—­no, four bebes now.  So that it is evident le bon dieu was pleased with her penance and rewarded her accordingly.”

Magda repressed an inclination to smile at the naive simplicity of Virginie’s creed.  Life would indeed be an easy affair if one could “get rid of one’s sins” on such an ingenuous principal of quid pro quo!

But Virginie came of French peasant stock, and to her untutored mind such a process of wiping the slate clean seemed extremely reasonable.  She continued with enthusiasm: 

“She but took the Vow of Penitence for a year.  It is a rule of the sisterhood.  If one has sinned greatly, one can take a vow of penitence for a year and expiate the sin.  Some remain altogether and take the final vows.  But my niece—­no!  She sinned and she paid.  And then she came back into the world again.  She is a good girl, my niece Suzette.  Mademoiselle has enjoyed her omelet?  Yes?”