Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/26

 Miss Iverson had made so many reckless predictions with the same air of prophecy that her associates had ceased to regard them as infallible. It was not easy for one to fall in love with a reserved young disciplinarian whom one saw for an hour only twice a week, and who filled that hour with stern exactions in the line of elocutionary drill. Then, too, there always was some girl on the platform with him, being trained in the art of graceful gesture. The spectacle of this suffering young person, whose gestures were usually made at right angles, was sufficiently exhilarating to distract the mind from sentimental reflections. In addition to these excellent reasons, those idols, Sister George and Sister Edgar, were present, sitting primly on opposite sides of the large exhibition hall in which the lessons were given, each in charge of her respective class and each alertly alive to the conduct and manner of every young person under her charge. So the hearts at St. Mary's continued to beat with their accustomed regularity, and the coming of Professor Varick wrought no harm.

If the young man was conscious of the presence of the two sentinels in the background, he showed no recognition of the fact beyond including them in the grave bow made to the assembled class when he entered and departed.