Theresa, because St. Theresa would understand her case the best, having
been, like herself, a scamp and a rattle-brain before she took it into
her head to astonish her friends by becoming a saint. Poor Jacko said
this with the solemnest face and the most serious earnestness; but, with
such a reputation as she had had for pertness, of course nobody would
believe but that she was making fun of the "Blessed Theresa," and so she
was put upon further probation, with the injunction to say the seven
penitential Psalms seven times a day, until she was in a holier frame of
mind; which she did, though under protest that she didn't think the
words composed by David to express his remorse for his own enormous sin
exactly suited her case. Sister Theresa, if the least steady and devout,
was certainly the most active and zealous and courageous among them all.
She yawned horribly over the long litanies and long sermons; but if ever
there was a work of mercy requiring extraordinary labor, privation,
exposure and danger, Sister Theresa was the one to face, in the cause,
lightning and tempest, plague, pestilence and famine, battle and murder,
and sudden death! Happy was she? or content? No; she was moody,
hysterical and devotional by turns--sometimes a zeal for good works
would possess her; sometimes the old fun and quaintness would break out,
and sometimes an overwhelming fit of remorse--each depending upon the
accidental cause that would chance to arouse the moods.
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