Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/260

 noticed them the Imp was violating so many more important rules that they held their breath and gave thought and prayer to the human problem before them. The Imp arrived at St. Mary's late Saturday evening and was at once put to bed. The strangeness of her surroundings kept her quiet that night, much to the surprise of the nuns as they afterwards recalled the fact. But in chapel Sunday morning, during the eminently elevating discourse by Father Fabian, this unnatural self-control of the Imp gave way, and within half an hour five fat little girls lifted their voices and wept aloud, and were ignominiously led down the middle aisle in full view of the scandalized congregation. Two of the victims were observed to cling close to each other and walk with a peculiar, side-long motion. It was subsequently revealed that the new pupil had tied their blond braids together with a dexterity and unyielding strength evidently due to long practice. Her attentions to the others were less original, but no less obnoxious. She had merely thrust a hat-pin into the plump arm of one, dropped a slate-pencil down the back of another, and made a face of such awful ferocity at the third that she shrieked aloud in terror from the rude shock to her nervous system. The Imp had