"Evelyn, dear, of what are you thinking?"
"Only of the fish, dear Mother. You know they are quite deaf; fish
haven't ears. There is a legend, however, of a boy playing the flute
and the fish leaping to listen."
"If her health doesn't improve," the Prioress said to herself, "we
shall not be able to keep her.
"Evelyn, dear, you are not looking very well; I am afraid you haven't
been sleeping lately."
"Last night I hardly closed my eyes, dear Mother, and to-day there is
no reality anywhere. One begins to hate everything--the shapes of the
trees, the colour of the sky."
"It is just what I suspected," the Prioress said to herself, "she was
thinking of suicide. Suicide in a convent--such a thing has never
happened. Yet why shouldn't such a thing happen? Everything happens
in this world."
But, notwithstanding some alarming relapses, Evelyn's health
continued to improve, slowly, but it continued to improve; and after
a long day's work in the garden she would talk quite cheerfully,
saying that that night for sure she would get some hours of sleep.
The Prioress listened, saying to herself, "There is no doubt that
manual work is the real remedy, the only remedy.
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