This
she performed very demurely; but the party on whom the salutation was
conferred, thought he could discern in her manner an arch and
mischievous exultation over his secret disappointment.--"The devil
take the saucy girl," he thought in his heart, though the presence of
the Abbess should have repressed all such profane imaginations,--"she
is as hard-hearted as the laughing hyaena that the story-books tell
of--she has a mind that I shall not forget her this night at least."
The matrons now retired also, giving the page to understand that he
was on no account to stir from the convent, or to show himself at the
windows, the Abbess assigning as a reason, the readiness with which
the rude heretics caught at every occasion of scandalizing the
religious orders.
"This is worse than the rigour of Mr. Henry Warden, himself," said the
page, when he was left alone; "for, to do him justice, however strict
in requiring the most rigid attention during the time of his homilies,
he left us to the freedom of our own wills afterwards--ay, and would
take a share in our pastimes, too, if he thought them entirely
innocent. But these old women are utterly wrapt up in gloom, mystery
and self-denial.--Well, then, if I must neither stir out of the gate
nor look out at window, I will at least see what the inside of the
house contains that may help to pass away one's time--peradventure I
may light on that blue-eyed laugher in some corner or other."
Going, therefore, out of the chamber by the entrance opposite to that
through which the two matrons had departed, (for it may be readily
supposed that he had no desire to intrude on their privacy.
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