At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench, she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement.  Her thoughts fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have written to justify so beautiful a title.  Her expectations were realised.  The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages:  she perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect compendium of a nun’s soul.  On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent and hardly apprehensible thing—­the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a word regarding her daily life:  any mother-abbess could have written such a materialistic book:  St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius, addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil—­the evolution of a nun’s soul.  And as Evelyn read she marked the passages that specially caught her attention.

“Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church:  Have a care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.  Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of which I am speaking.  Perhaps you fear that it will not go to diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory:  I answer that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.  Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer—­well, let it be so.”

“Oh, to be good like that,” she thought.  And her soul raised its eyes in a little shy emulation....  A few pages further on she read—­

“That all may take heed.  For neglect of this counsel a nun may find herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to free herself.  And then, great God!  What feebleness, what puerile complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source.  It is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may believe.  They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying them here.  I merely add:  in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in a superior it is a plague spot....

“An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule ordains.  And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier to keep silence if each works in her cell.  Moreover, it is of the first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the spirit in us.”

Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.