You will admit, Hilda, that her health is much improved,
and that she is capable now of arriving at some decision."
"There is no doubt her health is improving."
"And her piety--have you noticed it? She almost sets us an example."
Mother Hilda did not answer, and the Prioress understood her silence
to mean that she would hardly look upon Evelyn as an example for the
convent to follow.
"Well, something will have to be decided." And one evening the
Prioress asked Mother Philippa and Mother Hilda to her room after
evening prayers.
"We were talking of Evelyn the other day in the garden, Hilda, and
you admitted that she was in a state now to decide whether she should
go or stay."
"You mean, dear Mother, that Evelyn must either leave us or join the
community?"
"Or show some signs that she wishes to join it. Her postulancy has
been unduly prolonged; it is nearly a year since she returned from
Rome, and she was a postulant for six months before that."
"You think that if she hadn't a vocation she would have left us
before? But are you not forgetting that she was suffering from a
nervous breakdown, and came here with the intention of seeking rest
rather than becoming one of us?"
"Her health has been mending this long while.
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