“Then, dear Mother, the Order does not fulfil its purpose.”

“On the contrary, Evelyn, it fulfils its purpose, but its purpose is not what the world thinks it is; it is by the noble example they set that the Little Sisters of the Poor achieve their purpose.  It is by forsaking the world that they achieve their purpose, by their manifestation that the things of this world are not worth considering.  The Little Sisters pray in outward acts, whereas the contemplative Orders pray only in thought.  The purpose, as I have said, is identical; the creation of an atmosphere of goodness, without which the world could not exist.  There are two atmospheres, the atmosphere of good and the atmosphere of evil, and both are created by thought, whether thought in the concrete form of an act or thought in its purest form—­an aspiration.  Therefore all those who devote themselves to prayer, whether their prayers take the form of good works or whether their prayer passes in thought, collaborate in the production of a moral atmosphere, and it is the moral atmosphere which enables man to continue his earthly life.  Yourself is an instance of what I mean.  You were inspired to leave the stage, but whence did that inspiration come?  Are you sure that our prayers had nothing to do with it?  And the acts of the Little Sisters of the Poor all over the world—­are you sure they did not influence you?”

Evelyn thought of Owen’s letter, the last he had written to her, for in it he reminded her that she had nearly yielded to him.  But was it she who had resisted?  She attributed her escape rather to a sudden realisation on his part that she would be unhappy if he persisted.  Now, what was the cause of this sudden realisation, this sudden scruple?  For one seemed to have come into Owen’s mind.  How wonderful it would be if it could be attributed to the prayers of the nuns, for they had promised to pray for her, and, as the Prioress said, everything in the world is thought:  all begins in thought, all returns to thought, the world is but our thought.

While she pondered, unable to believe that the nuns’ prayers had saved her, unwilling to discard the idea, the Prioress told of the three nuns who came to England about thirty years ago to make the English foundation.  But of this part of the story Evelyn lost a great deal; her interest was not caught again until the Prioress began to tell how a young girl in society, rich and beautiful, whose hand was sought by many, came to the rescue of these three nuns with all her fortune and a determination to dedicate her life to God.  Her story did not altogether catch Evelyn’s sympathies, and the Prioress agreed with Evelyn that her conduct in leaving her aged parents was open to criticism.  We owe something to others, and it appears that an idea had come into her mind when she was twelve years old that she would like to be a nun, and though she appeared to like admiration and to encourage one young man, yet she never really swerved from her idea, she always told him she would enter a convent.