"
"How so, Sister Jerome?" Evelyn asked incautiously.
"Because if it had been a little later, or if Monsignor had not been
delayed in Rome--I only thought," she added, stopping short, "that
you would like Monsignor to give you the white veil--it would be
nicer for you; or if the Bishop gave it," she added, "or Father
Ambrose. I am sure Sister Veronica never would have been a nun at all
if Father Ambrose had not professed her. Father Daly is such a little
frump."
"That will do, children; I cannot really allow our chaplain to be
spoken of in that manner." And Mother Hilda looked at Evelyn,
thinking, "Well, the Prioress has had her way with her."
The recreation-bell rang, and the novices clattered down the stairs
of the novitiate, their childish eagerness rousing Evelyn from the
mild stupor which still seemed to hang about her mind; and she smiled
at the novices and at herself, for suddenly it had all begun to seem
to her like a scene in a play, herself going to take the white veil
and to become a nun, at all events, for a while. "Now, how is all
this to end?" she asked herself. "But what does it matter?" Clouds
seemed to envelop her mind again, and she acquiesced when the
Prioress said:
"I think your retreat had better begin to-day.
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