The Superior did all she could to oppose this decision, and even asserted
authority over the pupil who, since her eighteenth year had been released
from discipline, subject but to the lightest laws of the convent. As the
great-niece and beloved child of the late Superior she had enjoyed all
possible privileges; while the liberal sum annually remitted for her
maintenance gave her a certain importance in the house.
And now on being told she must not go, her spirit rose against the
Superior's authority.
"I recognise no earthly power that can keep me from those I love in their
time of peril!" she said.
"You do not know that they are in sickness or danger. My last letters from
Paris stated that it was only the low people whom the contagion in London
was attacking."
"If it was only the low people, why did the Queen-mother leave? If it was
safe for my sister to be in London it would have been safe for the Queen."
"Lady Fareham is doubtless in Oxfordshire."
"I have written to Chilton Abbey as well as to Fareham House, and I can get
no answer. Indeed, reverend mother, it is time for me to go to those to
whom I belong. I never meant to stay in this house after my aunt's death.
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