Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/107

. Then she caught her friend around the waist and waltzed her lightly along the polished floor.

"Do you know," she exclaimed, when they stopped, "I have discovered a secret about Sister Cecilia? She is starving for music. That seems absurd, doesn't it, when she lives in an atmosphere of it all the time. But I think I know what she wants she is hungry for a great orchestra, or a really wonderful human voice. Sister Edgar, whose voice promised much, died, you know. That almost broke Cecilia's heart. And now, when she reads these notices I give her, and when I describe to her the singing I hear when we go to the opera, it is pathetic to see her face. Several times her eyes have filled with tears. I shall enjoy telling her who Ernestine is."

The revelation was not long delayed, for she met Sister Cecilia in the corridor several hours later, and was rewarded by the light that flashed in the nun's eyes as she told her story.

"Madame Holstein has only this one child," said May, "and she could not live away from her; so she brought her to this country when she came for the season. Ernestine is a dear thing, and her mother wishes to have her where she can see her every month or two. I know all this, because my sister, Mrs. George