"
"Now, if you could make a new foundation--if some three or four of
you--if the Bishop would send me there."
"Of course, we might go and do good work in the district you speak
of, but I doubt whether the Bishop would recognise us as a new
foundation."
"I daresay he wouldn't." And they walked a little way in silence.
"You were telling me of your project for a school, Sister Winifred."
Sister Winifred entered into the details. But she had unduly excited
Father Daly, and he could not listen.
"My position here," he said, interrupting her, "is an impossible one.
The only ones here who consider my advice are the lay sisters, the
admirable lay sisters who work from morning till evening, and forego
their prayers lest you should want for anything. You know I'm treated
very nearly with contempt by almost all the choir sisters. You think
I don't know that I am spoken of as a mere secular priest? Every
suggestion of mine meets with a rude answer. You have witnessed a
good deal of this, Sister Winifred. I daresay you've forgotten, but I
remember it all... you have come to speak to me here because the
Prioress will not allow you to spend more than three minutes in the
confessional, arrogating to herself the position of your spiritual
adviser, only allowing to me what is to her no more than the
mechanical act of absolution.
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