Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/157

 to help her in good works in the world was so sincere? Surely they were right in feeling that there was much to be done outside the cloister walls—poverty to be lightened, suffering to be relieved, a good example to be set to those of her own circle whose thoughts were exclusively on worldly things. She did not wish to set herself up as a model, yet perhaps she could show them that life was something more than the gay measure they thought it. She would remain with her people and do her work, but neither her parents nor others realized how great the sacrifice seemed to her. For Miss Twombly was taking herself very seriously, which, perhaps, was due in part to her extreme youth and in part to a lack of the saving grace of humor.

After a year or two had passed, however, she found herself doing with eager hands and a lighter heart the work around her. They had been right—those friends who advised her when she was graduated. The great world held infinite opportunities for a woman with health, youth, charity, and wealth. It was worth while, this chosen career of hers, broken into though it was by the demands of that other social life which must be lived as well. She kept faithfully to the bargain she had made with her father and mother. A certain