Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/129

 her to spend her childhood and girlhood in the convent. At first this had been done in deference to the earnestly expressed wishes of a strong-willed second wife, but as the years went by he became so reconciled to the situation that even the girl's holidays were passed at the homes of classmates. Her father made her a liberal allowance for her expenses and felt that his duty was done. Her proposition to go out into the world and make a career for herself met with his lively approval.

She put the situation frankly before her friends the nuns.

"You see," she said, with much cheerfulness, one warm August day, "I shall be eighteen the last of this month, and then I shall come into the money my mother left me. It is not much, but it is well invested, and will yield an income of eleven or twelve hundred dollars a year. That is almost a hundred a month, and I can go to New York and take singing lessons and live very comfortably on such an income. I must make a home and friends for myself somewhere, and I might as well begin there as anywhere. Later, perhaps, I may go to Europe, if my voice develops well. Sister Cecilia says it is full of promise, and that if I work hard I am sure to succeed."