The Earl groaned as she continued,

“I suppose we can be thirty, but no more. And for goodness sake let’s have some young men to offset the boredom of too many aunts and middle-aged cousins!”

This started an interchange between husband and wife of names that meant nothing to Honora although she noticed that the majority were of people with titles.

She wondered what the Duke was thinking at this moment and if, although he had no wish to marry her, he was still thinking that she was the lesser of two evils.

She felt frightened when she thought of him and she knew her aunt had not been speaking idly when she threatened that if she did not do as she wished she would have to enter a Convent.

Having lived for two years in the Convent in Florence, Honora was aware that that one was very different from the Convents where nuns dedicated themselves either to a life of confinement or to tending the sick and the poor.

In Florence the school was kept apart from the building where the nuns slept and where some of them played no part in teaching and had no contact with the pupils.

Instead Honora had learned that they were segregated from everything that appertained to the world outside.

Because some of the windows of the school looked over the garden where these nuns took their exercise, she often wondered as she saw them what they thought about and if they ever regretted having taken the veil.

She had thought, although perhaps she was wrong to do so, that it was a waste of life as God had meant it to be lived and she had once discussed it when she was very young with her mother.

“Why do some women become nuns, Mama?” she had asked.

The question had arisen because they had been stopped on the road by two nuns collecting for charity.

“I am sure they are very good and very holy,” her mother answered, “but I cannot help feeling sorry for them.”

“Why?”

“I think God meant us, as it says in the Bible, to use our talents and not hide them away,” her mother replied.

She saw that Honora was listening and went on,

“Christ lived the life of an ordinary man, helping Joseph with his carpentry, until He began to teach the Message that came from God, His Father. I believe that we too have to lead an ordinary life to the best of our abilities, trying to do good by deeds and not entirely by prayer.”

“It must be very lonely for them, Mama,” Honora suggested.

“Perhaps I am explaining it badly,” her mother went on. “I do admire the nuns and, of course, prayer is of great importance not only to them but to all of us, but I would want you, my dearest, to live your life to the full.”

She gave a little laugh before she added,

“And nobody does that better than your father!”