Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/195

 through the air. The child looked at the dull skies above, then at the square black hole before her, and she shivered as the first spadeful of earth fell on the box below.

The scene changed. The child, a little older, lay in a great dormitory. Her bed was shut off, like the others, by muslin curtains, but she could hear whispering voices around her and stifled laughs. It was her first night in the convent; she knew none of the other pupils. One of them suddenly stole in between the curtains, and stood, a white-robed figure, behind the bed.

"You're the new girl," she said, curiously, "and Sister says you're an orphan. It must be funny to be an orphan. Mattie Crane says when you are, you have nobody to love you."

The child buried her head in the pillows and did not answer.

Now she was a young girl, at her guardian's house, and a holiday party was in progress. One of the sons of the house followed her to the alcove where she had hidden herself to look at the gayety of others unheeded in her retreat.

"Why in the world," he said, with the patronizing censure of fifteen, "are you hiding away here? Papa is always telling us to be nice to you, but how can anybody like you