Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/131

 and women showed a sociable willingness to set them before her.

It was a simple matter for the girl with no home influences or close ties to drift into the "bohemian" set—so unique and interesting to her convent eyes. She went with these new friends to New York's music-halls, to its cheap table-d'hôte restaurants, even to French balls and the slums, and felt that she was seeing life. Men and women sometimes looked at her pure face and wondered over its contrast with the rather sophisticated ones around her. Once an elderly woman with white hair and "mother eyes" took it upon herself to give a little advice to the girl with the gold cross at her neck.

"Do you think, my dear," she said, "that these are the best friends for you? There is no special harm in them, perhaps, but they are not in your class and may bring you into theirs. I don't think you would like that, would you? Forgive me for speaking in this way, but if you were my daughter it would break my heart to see you with them."

Katherine listened courteously and even with a little awe. She realized the kindliness of the woman's purpose. It came to her dimly that her mother, had she been alive, might have said the same thing. But she was young,