“Is that all?  I thought she and I were mad.  You’ll excuse me, Mother Superior?  May I ask her about them?”

“Of course, Mademoiselle Helbrun, you can.”  And Louise walked on in front with Evelyn.

“Mother Superior tells me you have taught bullfinches the motives of ‘The Ring,’ is it true?”

“Of course.  How could they have learned the motives unless from me?”

“But why the motives of ’The Ring’?”

“Why not, Louise?  Short little phrases, just suited to a bird.”

“But, dear, you must have spent hours teaching them.”

“It requires a great deal of patience, but when there is a great whirl in one’s head—­”

Evelyn stopped speaking, and Louise understood that she shrank from the confession that to retain her sanity she had taught bullfinches to whistle,

“So she is sane, saner than any of us, for she has kept herself sane by an effort of her own will,” Louise said to herself.

“Some birds learn much quicker than others; they vary a great deal.”

“My dear Evelyn, it is ever so nice of you.  Just fancy teaching bullfinches to sing the motives of ‘The Ring,’ It seemed to me I was in an enchanted garden.  But tell me, why, when you had taught them, did you let them fly away?”

“Well, you see, they can only remember two tunes.  If you teach them a third they forget the first two, and it seemed a pity to confuse them.”

“So when a bullfinch knows two motives you let him go?  Well, it is all very simple now you have explained it.  They find everything they want in the garden.  The bullfinch is a homely little bird, almost as domestic as the robin; they just stay here, isn’t that it?”

“Sometimes they go into the park, but they come every morning to be fed.  On the whole, Francis is my best bird; but there is another who in a way excels him—­Timothy.  I don’t know why we call him Timothy; it isn’t a pretty name, but it seems suited to him because I taught him ‘The Shepherd’s Pipe’; and you know how difficult it is, dropping half a note each time?  Yet he knows it nearly all; sometimes he will whistle it through without a mistake.  We could have got a great deal of money for him if he had been sold, and Reverend Mother wanted me to sell him, but I wouldn’t.”

And Evelyn led Louise away to a far corner.

“He is generally in this corner; these are his trees.”  And Evelyn began to whistle.

“Does he answer you when you whistle?”

“No; scraping one’s feet against the gravel, some little material noise, will set him whistling.”  And Evelyn scraped her feet.  “I’m afraid he isn’t here to-day.  But there is the bell for Benediction.  We must not keep the nuns waiting.”  And the singers hurried towards the convent, where they met the Prioress and the Mistress of the Novices and Sister Mary John.

“Dear me, how late you are, Sister!” said Sister Mary John.  “I suppose you were listening to the bullfinches.  Aren’t they wonderful?  But won’t you introduce me to Mademoiselle Helbrun?  It would be delightful, mademoiselle, if you would only sing for us.”