respect for the older nuns. The Mistress of Postulants explained that Gabbie had lived at St. Matthew's nearly all her life, and it was comfortable here for her. The young postulant from Vermont then complained that Gabriella was vain, and she swore that she had seen her looking at her own reflection in a window, for lack of a mirror.
“Perhaps she was just thinking about something.”
“Her looks,” the girl said glumly. She was an unattractive girl who had decided to join the Order six months after a broken engagement, and the Mistress of Postulants was still somewhat in doubt about the girl's vocation, though not in the least about Gabriella's. No one in the convent ever doubted it for a moment. And Gabriella had clearly never been happier in her life. She was obviously thriving in her new life at the convent. And all of the nuns who had known her all her life beamed each time they watched her.
Gabriella wrote a Christmas story for them all that year, and made little books of it for each of them, working on them late at night in Mother Gregoria's office, and each of the nuns found one at their place in the dining hall on Christmas morning. It was a story she had worked on for months, and which the Mistress of Novices insisted ought to be published.
“She's showing off again!” Sister Anne, the girl from Vermont, complained again, showing very little generosity of heart, and even less Christmas spirit. She left the table and went to her room, tossing the little book Gabriella had handmade for her into the garbage. And later that afternoon, Gabriella went to see her, and tried to explain that this had been her home for many years, and it was hard for her not to be jubilant about joining the Order. “I suppose you think everyone here is in love with you because they know you. Well, you're no better than the rest of us, and if you weren't so busy showing off all the time you might make a better nun. Have you ever thought of that?” She spat the words in Gabbie's face, and reminded her suddenly of her mother. Being told how inept and how wrong she was cut into her heart like a dagger, and later that afternoon, she talked to Mother Gregoria privately about it.
“Maybe she's right. Maybe I am arrogant… and show off without knowing it.” But the Mother Superior tried to explain the obvious to her, that the young nun from Vermont was jealous.
And for the next three months, it became a kind of holy vendetta. She reported on Gabriella constantly, and confronted her with her failings every time the opportunity arose. It became an agony of worry for Gabriella, who constantly feared that the girl saw flaws in her that were really there and would keep her from serving Christ with true humility and the appropriate devotion. Gabriella went to confession constantly, and began doubting her own vocation. By spring, she was beginning to think she'd made a mistake, and that the girl saw faults in her that were clearly there and had to be excised before she could make a final decision about joining the Order. There was something so painful and familiar about the way the young girl went after her that it rattled her to her very soul, and in confession one night she admitted to the priest on the other side of the grille that she had serious doubts about the vocation she had once been so sure of.
“What makes you say that?” The unfamiliar voice sounded puzzled, and Gabriella was startled to realize that she wasn't confessing to one of the priests she had known since her childhood.
“Sister Anne accuses me constantly of vanity and pride, and arrogance, and self-justification, self-importance, and maybe she's right. How can I possibly be of any use to God if I can't express humility and simplicity and obey Him? And what's more,” she blushed in the darkness as she confessed, but it didn't matter anyway, since she didn't know him, “I think I'm beginning to hate her.”
There was a moment of silence on the other side, and then a gentle question. He had a kind voice, and for some odd reason she found herself wondering what he looked like.
“Have you ever hated anyone else before?”
She answered without hesitation. “My parents.”
“Have you ever confessed that before?” He sounded intrigued by her and she told him she had,