Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/93

 special story for the Sunday "Searchlight." She mentally thanked anew the friend who had secured her admission and who was now crying softly at her side. Miss Van Orden was subject to gusts of emotion which she seemed to enjoy at the time and which invariably left her much refreshed. She was a close friend of the candidate for the veil, and to-day's attack was therefore justified. Miss Herrick, acutely conscious of her own want of harmony with the gloom about her, reminded herself that she was the only person present who was a stranger to the postulant, and also that she was there solely in her reporter's capacity. She was not, however, wholly unmoved by the spectacle. She had studied the calm and beautiful face of the central figure in the drama, and she felt that this well-poised woman of the world had not turned her back on life with out fully realizing the step she was taking. She was giving up wealth and position and friends. She was burying great beauty and many gifts. She was resigning all possibility of wifehood, motherhood, or any earthly love—for what? Miss Herrick, with her strictly