“On the contrary, I have been very much interested....  Your life here is so beautiful that I long to know more about it.  At present my knowledge is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants.”  The Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added—­

“But Sister Veronica is very young.”

“She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty.  Ever since she was quite a child she wished to be a nun.  Even then her mind was quite made up.”

“She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be allowed to walk in the convent garden.”

“Yes.  You don’t know, perhaps, that she is my niece.  My poor brother’s child.  She was left an orphan at a very early age.  Her’s is a sad story.  But God has been good:  she never doubted her vocation, she passed from an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God.  So she has been spared the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world.”

An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life.  She had known the world and had renounced it.  In the silence that had fallen Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear it.  But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past, that there the past is really the past.

“I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction.  All the sisters are longing to hear you.  It will be such a pleasure to them.”

“I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me.  But I daresay I shall find something among the music you have here.”

“Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist.”

“And an excellent musician.  I noticed her playing.”

“She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of....  You might sing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a beautiful piece of music it is.  But I see that you don’t admire it.”

“Well,” Evelyn said, smiling, “it is contrary to all the principles I’ve been brought up in.”

“We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is a little cold.  You do not mind walking very slowly?  I’m forbidden to walk fast on account of my heart.”

They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter’s walk, amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her father had achieved.  She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk.  It was flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of Palestrina was exquisite to speak.  They passed the tall cross standing at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of long reflection—­“Have I never heard any of the music you sing?  Wagner I have never heard, but the Italian operas, ‘Lucia’ and ‘Trovatore,’ or Mozart?  Have you never sung Mozart?”