would be the person who would be able
to assist Sister Winifred better than any other.

"But, Monsignor," Evelyn said, "I do not feel sure I've a vocation
for the religious life."

Out of a shrivelled face pale, deeply-set eyes looked at her, and it
seemed that she could read therein the disappointment he felt that
she was not remaining in the convent. She was sorry she had
disappointed him, for he had helped her; and she left him talking to
Sister Winifred and wandered down the passage, not quite certain
whether he doubted her strength to lead a chaste life in the world,
or could she attribute that change of expression in his eyes to
wounded vanity at finding that the living clay put into his hands was
escaping from them unmoulded... by him? Hard to say. There was a fear
in her heart! Now was it that she might lack the force of character
to leave the convent when the time came... after the Prioress's
death? Life is but a ceaseless uprooting of oneself. Sister Winifred
might be elected....

"Who will have the strength to turn the convent into an active Order
when I am gone?" the Prioress often asked Evelyn, who could only
answer her that she hoped she would be with them for many a day yet.
"No, my dear, not for many months. I am a very old woman." She
questioned Evelyn regarding Mother Philippa's administration; and
Evelyn disguised from her the disorder that had come into the
convent, not telling how the nuns spent a great deal of time visiting
each other in their cells, how in the garden some walked on one side
and some on the other, how the bitterest enmities had sprung up. But,
though she was not told these things, the Prioress knew her convent
had fallen into decadence, and sometimes she said:

"Well, I haven't the strength to restore dignity to this Order; so it
had better disappear, become an active Order. But who among you will
be able to reorganise it? Mother Philippa--what do you think, dear?"

"Mother Philippa is an excellent woman," Evelyn answered; "but as an
administrator--"

"You don't believe in her?"

"Only when she is guided by another, one superior to herself."

"One who will see that the rule is maintained?"

Evelyn was thinking of Mother Hilda.

"Mother Hilda," she said, "seems to me too quiet, too subtle, too
retiring." And the Prioress agreed with her, saying under her breath:

"She prefers to confine herself to the education of her novices. So
what is to be done?"

From Mother Hi