Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/265

 Ernesta, as the girls called the oldest and most venerated Sister in the convent. Sister Ernesta was almost eighty, an age few nuns attain. Her active share in the work of the community was over, but her benign influence permeated the place like perfume, and pupils and nuns alike worshipped at her shrine. Saint Ernesta had grown more collected in herself with the passing of the years: the long life of which she was so near the end seemed like a dream as she looked back at it. Few things except her devotions were vital to her now, yet there was something very beautiful in her face as she sat waiting for the final summons. When she took her rare walks down the long halls or through the garden paths, her gentle smile was unfailingly given to every pupil she met, but few of the girls could boast of the honor of a word from her. Universally loved and venerated though she was, Saint Ernesta's aloofness from the community was almost as marked as that of the Imp, though from so different a cause. So, when she one day stopped and spoke to the latter in the garden, even the Imp was conscious of the greatness of the moment and of a swelling of the chest. The Imp had captured a tadpole from the tiny lake in the convent garden, and was watching its development with the zest of the born naturalist,