Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/128

 "You see," she said, with grateful exultation, "this cross gives me admission as a guest at any convent in the world. If I am travelling alone and do not wish to go to a hotel, I need only present myself at a cloister and the portress will give my cross one look and throw wide the doors to it—and myself. Then, some time, when I am ninety or a hundred years old, I may come back to my Alma Mater a battered veteran of the battle of life, with a smooth cross on my weary breast. By that sign they will know me, and gather me in." Her friends laughed at the light words, but no one could deny that Miss Randolph wore the cross faithfully during the summer following her graduation. Like many convent girls, she found it very hard to keep away from the institution which had sheltered her for years. She felt homesick for it, and the intervals between her frequent visits were weeks to be lived through in the thought of the open cloister doors that lay at the end of them. After this restful, lazy summer she meant to work and win her place in the world. In the mean time it was pleasant to wander through the old garden and discuss her plans with the Sisters.

She had many plans, and was singularly free to carry them out. Her father had