ed from
Rome, and she was a postulant for six months before that."

"You think that if she hadn't a vocation she would have left us
before? But are you not forgetting that she was suffering from a
nervous breakdown, and came here with the intention of seeking rest
rather than becoming one of us?"

"Her health has been mending this long while. Really, Hilda--"

"I am sorry, Mother, if I seem stubborn."

"Not stubborn, but I should like to hear you explain your reasons for
thinking Evelyn has not a vocation. And Mother Philippa is most
anxious to hear them, too."

Mother Philippa listened, thinking of her bed, wondering why Mother
Mary Hilda kept them up by refusing to agree with the Prioress.

"I am afraid I shall not be able to say anything that will convince
you. I have had some experience--"

"We know that you are very experienced, otherwise you would not be
the Mistress of the Novices. You don't believe in Evelyn's vocation?"

"I'm afraid I don't, and--"

"And what, Mother Hilda? We are here for the purpose of listening to
you. We shall be influenced by everything you say, so pray speak your
mind fully."

"About Evelyn? But that is just my point; there is nothing for me to
say about her. I hardly know her; she has hardly been in the
novitiate since she returned from Rome." "You think before taking the
veil she should receive more religious instruction from you?"

"She certainly should. I grant you Evelyn is a naturally pious woman,
and that counts for a great deal; but what I attach importance to is
that she is still alien to the convent, knowing hardly anything of
our rule, of our observances. A novice spends six months in the
novitiate with me learning obedience, how to forget herself, how she
is merely an instrument, and how the greatest purpose of her life is
to obey."

"It is impossible to overestimate the value of obedience, but there
are some--I will not say who can dispense with obedience, of course
not, but who cannot put off their individualities, who cannot become
the merely typical novice--that one who would tell you, if she were
asked to describe the first six months of her life in the convent,
that all she remembered was a great deal of running up and down
stairs. There are some who may not be moulded, but who mould
themselves; and they are not the worst, sometimes they are the best
nuns. For instance, Sister Mary John--who will doubt her vocation?
And yet there is not a more headstrong