Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/268

 High in the tower of the many-sided convent building hung an old bell whose tones for fifty years had called the nuns to mass each morning at five o'clock. It was rung only once again during the day—for vespers in the afternoon. During the remainder of the day smaller bells were sounded to remind the Sisterhood of the duties allotted to the passing hours. The bell-ringer was Sister Harmonia, a gentle nun who had climbed to her lofty post twice every twenty-four hours during the fifteen years she had dwelt in the cloister. It was a long journey to the top, in the dark, up the spiral staircase that wound like a narrow corkscrew to the platform just below the bell. A great key on Sister Harmonia's belt unlocked the small door that led to the tower, but the hinges of that door were rusty and the lock was old and loose. No precautions were taken to guard the place, for the darkness, the loneliness, the dust, and the suggestion of the presence of mice and bats offered few attractions even to inquisitive school-girls.

The Imp passed the door one day on one of her various tours of inspection, and noticed the sagging lock and the absence of a sentinel. It would have been a simple matter for her clever fingers to pick the lock. A glance proved this, and even as she looked the Imp's hands