Chapter One

Chapter One


When Blanche Melanson upset a dish of crab-apple jelly on Mother Superior's pristine white tablecloth, Sister Agatha proclaimed it a sign. A sign of what, she did not care to say. But she was not pressed on this point, for of all those present in the convent dining room that December noon, only Felice Belliveau paid attention to the content as well as the form of Sister Agatha's outburst.

All the others seated at the three circular tables looked outraged or amused, according to their general dispositions, when, after Sister Theodota's reprimand of Blanche (which stained that girl's pasty cheeks as red as the pickled beets upon her plate), Sister Agatha stood and, with her finger trembling like the gelatinous mass she pointed toward, cried, "A sign, Sisters, a sign."

"Ridiculous," Sister Theodota countered, with a volume that carried to the head table at the far end of the room. Mother Superior rose halfway from her chair and looked sternly toward the offender, while beside her the Abbe Sosonier, who appeared, seated amongst the black-frocked females, like a fly serenely caught in molasses, attended to his fish and potatoes as though nothing were amiss. The Doucette twins, dining at Mother Superior's table by virtue of the pink good-conduct ribbons pinned to their collars, smirked. At Sister Agatha's table Sister Claire looked worried, Sister Theodota's brow lowered as threateningly as the Nova Scotia sky before a winter storm, the irrepressible Celeste Rouget giggled, and the novice Evangeline crossed herself. But no less than an hour later, when the young ladies worked at their needlepoint in the parlor and the nuns knelt in the