hat Saint Paul must have had the same kind of fiery and
fearless temperament.

It sometimes outran facts, if it always obeyed her intention, as
happened one day when she privately gave Angela a sermon on vanity
which would have made the other novices tremble at the time and feel
very uncomfortable for several days afterwards. When she had wound up
her peroration and finished, she drew two or three fierce little
breaths and scrutinised the young girl's face; but to her surprise it
had not changed in the least. The clear young eyes were as steady and
quiet as ever; if they expressed anything, it was a quiet admiration
which the older woman had not hitherto roused in the younger members
of her community.

'Pray for me, Mother,' Angela said, 'and I will try to be less vain.'

The other looked at her again very keenly, and then, instead of
answering, asked a question.

'Why do you wish to be a nun?'

Angela had lately asked herself the same thing, but she replied with
some diffidence:

'If I can do a little good, by working very hard all my life, I hope
that it may be allowed to help the soul of a person who died
suddenly.'

The Mother Superior's white face softened a little.

'That is a good intention,' she said. 'If it is sincere and lasting,
you will be a good nun. You may begin your noviciate on Sunday if you
have made up your mind.'

'I am ready.'

'Very well. I have only one piece of advice to give you, and perhaps I
shall remind you of it often, for it was given to me very late, and I
should have been the better for it. Try to remember what I tell you.'

'I will remember, Mother.'

'It is this. Count your failures but not your successes. You cannot
surprise God by the amount of good you do. There are girls who enter
upon the noviciate just as hard-working students go up for an
examination, hoping to astonish their examiners by the amount they
know. That is well enough at the university, but it is all wrong in
religion. Work how you will, you cannot be perfect, and, if you were,
you could only be what God made man before sin came. Each student is
trying to beat all the others, and one succeeds. We are not trying to
outdo each other; there are no marks in our examination and there is
no competition. We are working together to save life in a world where
millions die for want of care. To do less than the best we can is
failure, for each of us, and the best we can all do together is very
little compared wi