Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/122

 of mother's singing—the singing for which she has been so very hungry for two months," she said, mischievously. "And now she must be roused to take her bread and milk and drive to the hotel. I must have her there with me while I am in the city," she added, a little shamefacedly. "Perhaps it is wrong, but I have a companion who will take good care of her when I am not home. And you know, Sister, when I come in at night, I wish her in my bed, waiting for me. Oh, the longing for her sometimes, the hunger to feel her dear little body in my arms—" She stopped suddenly, and looked down at her sleeping child with an expression on her face that all the maternal music of Fidès had not brought there.

They left the room and went down the corridor together, Madame Holstein still carrying her little girl. The nun walked beside them, answering the singer's light remarks, and thanking her in her sweet, shy way for the music of the afternoon. She was still in a daze, and said little. But the other woman understood.

Hours after the nun had gone to her cell that night, she lay, her eyes open on the darkness, listening to the music that swelled within the four bare walls. Somewhere in the great city outside the silent convent Madame Holstein