if she were to persevere, or if Kitty would succeed if she continued to practice “The Moonlight Sonata,” a work of the beauty of which no one in the convent had any faintest comprehension?  She herself had some gifts, and, after much labour, had brought her gifts to fruition, not to any splendid, but to some fruition.  It was not probable that any one who came to the convent would do more than she had done; far better to learn knitting or cooking—­anything in the world except music.  Her gift of singing had brought her to this convent.  Was it really so?  Was her gift connected in some obscure way with the moral crisis which had drawn her into this convent?  There seemed to be a connection, only she did not seem to be able to work it out.  But there must be one surely, otherwise her poor people, whom she loved so dearly, would not have been abandoned.  A very cruel abandonment it was, and she pondered a long while on this subject without arriving at any other conclusion except that for her to remain in the convent to teach music to the children of rich merchants, who had villas in Wimbledon, was out of the question.  Her poor people were calling to her, and the convent had no further concern in her life.  Of that she was sure.  It was no longer the same convent.  The original aspiration had declined; the declension had been from the late Prioress to Sister Winifred, who, knowing that her own election to Prioress was impossible, had striven to get Mother Philippa elected Prioress and herself sub-Prioress—­a very clever move on her part, for with Mother Philippa as Prioress the management of the school would be left to her, and the school was what interested her.  Of course, the money they made would be devoted to building a chapel, or something of that kind; but it was the making of money which would henceforth be the pleasure of the convent.  Evelyn took a certain pleasure in listening negligently to Mother Winifred, who seemed unable to resist the desire to talk to her about vocations whenever they met.  From whatever point they started, the conversation would soon turn upon a vocation, and Evelyn found herself in the end listening to a story of some novice who thought she had no vocation and had left the convent, but had returned.

“And very often,” Mother Winifred would say sententiously, “those who think themselves most sure of their vocation find themselves without one.”

And Evelyn would answer, “Those who would take the last place are put up first—­isn’t that it, Mother Winifred?”

Very often as they walked round the great, red-brick building, with rows of windows on either side facing each other, so that the sky could be seen through the building, Evelyn said: