We owe something to others, and it appears that
an idea had come into her mind when she was twelve years old that
she would like to be a nun, and though she appeared to like
admiration and to encourage one young man, yet she never really
swerved from her idea, she always told him she would enter a
convent.
Evelyn did not answer, for she was thinking of the strange threads
one finds in the weft of human life. Every one follows a thread, but
whither do the threads lead? Into what design? And while Evelyn was
thinking the Prioress told how the house in which they were now
living had been bought with five thousand out of the thirty thousand
pounds which this girl had brought to the convent. The late Prioress
was blamed for this outlay. Blame often falls on innocent shoulders,
for how could she have foreseen the increased taxation? how could she
have foreseen that no more rich postulants would come to the
convent, only penniless converts turned out by their relations, and
aged governesses? A great deal of the money had been lost in a
railway, and it was lost at a most unfortunate time, only a few days
before the lawyer had written to say that the Australian mine in
which most of their money was invested had become bankrupt.
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