"You have forgotten what I said, Mother Winifred."
Mother Winifred laughed, but, undaunted, she soon returned with some
new argument, which had occurred to her in the interval, as she
prayed in church, or in her cell at night, and the temptation to try
the effect of the new argument on Evelyn was irresistible.
"Dear Sister Teresa--you see the familiar name comes to my tongue
though you have put off the habit--we shall be a long time in
straitened circumstances. A new mortgage has had, as you know, to be
placed on the property in order to get money to build the school; the
school will pay, but not at once."
Evelyn protested she was not responsible for this new debt. She had
advised the Prioress and Mother Winifred against it, warning them
that she did not intend to remain in the convent.
"But we always expected that you would remain."
And in this way Evelyn was made to feel her responsibility so much
that in the end she consented to give up part of her money to the
nuns. So long as she had just enough to live upon it did not matter,
and she owed these nuns a great deal. True that she had paid them ten
times over what she owed them, but still, it was difficult to measure
one's debts in pounds, shillings, and pence.
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