Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/185

 calm of one whose life it was to know many partings and to give no undue attention to inevitable pulling at the heart-strings.

"We shall be very glad to have you with us again, dear child," she had said. "You must feel that this will always be a home for you, even if you come to it only at long intervals. You will lead a busy and, I hope, a useful and happy life. Perhaps you can do as much good in the world as here—that is for you to decide. Pray over it earnestly; examine your conscience rigorously. Do nothing in haste. Whether you become one of us or not, we shall always hold you in our hearts."

The gentle words of affection, which meant so much to her because so rarely heard, went with her into the world and became a creed by which she half consciously regulated her life. Those she met were weighed by the severe standard of the convent, and found wanting. The weakness, the frivolity, the strangely elastic point of view of these men and women troubled her; the paganism of society appalled the convent girl who went to mass each morning and lived up to the letter of her religion. She tried to do her duty as it was conceived for her by others. She went to dinners, to balls and parties, and felt at each of them the singular aloofness that had marked her life. There