“I have just sent a letter to my father, in which I tell him, amid many hopes of a safe arrival in Rome, not unduly tired, and with all the dear instruments intact, unharmed by rough hands of porters and Custom House officers, that, one of these days, in three or four months, when I am well, I look forward to contributing the viola da gamba part of a sonata to the concert of the old instrumental music which he will give when he has put his choir in order:  you know I used to play that instrument in my young days.  A more innocent wish never entered into the heart of a human being, you will say, yet this letter causes me many qualms, for I cannot help thinking that I have been untruthful; I have—­lied is, perhaps, too strong a word—­ but I have certainly equivocated to the Prioress, and deceived her, I think, though it is possible, wishing to be deceived, she lent herself to the deception.  Now I am preferring an accusation against the dear Prioress!  My goodness, Monsignor, what a strange and difficult thing life is, and how impossible to tell the exact truth!  If one tries to be exact one ends by entangling the thread, and getting it into very ugly knots indeed.  In trying to tell the truth, I have been guilty of a calumny against the Prioress, nothing short of that, Monsignor, nothing short of that—­against the dear Prioress, who deserves better of me, for her kindness towards me since I have been to the convent has never ceased for a single instant!

“One of her many kindnesses is the subject of this letter.  When I arrived here the nuns were not decided, and I was not decided, whether I should live in the convent as I did before, as a guest, or whether, in view of the length of my probable residence in the convent, I should be given the postulant’s cap and gown.  Mother Mary Hilda thought it would be dangerous to open the doors of the novitiate to one who admitted she was entering the religious life only as an experiment, especially to one like myself, an opera singer, who, however zealously she might conform to the rule, would bring a certain atmosphere with her into the novitiate, one which could not fail to affect a number of young and innocent girls, and perhaps deleteriously.  I think I agree with Mother Mary Hilda.  All this I heard afterwards from Mother Philippa, who, in her homely way, let out the secret of these secret deliberations to me—­how the Prioress, who desired the investiture, said that every postulant entered the novitiate as an experiment.  ‘But believing,’ Mother Mary Hilda interrupted, ’that the experiment will succeed, whereas, in her case, the postulant does not believe at all.’