Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/287

 Feet were flying along the hall, and as she spoke the last words the door burst open with no preliminary rap. Into the room a small but extraordinarily active bundle precipitated itself. It flew across the floor, dropped on its knees beside Saint Ernesta's chair, buried its head in the nun's lap, and burst into a storm of passionate tears. It was the Imp—the Imp conquered and repentant, but making her amends tempestuously, as she did all else. Saint Ernesta laid her tremulous, transparent hands on the mop of hair in her lap and turned on May a meaning glance she was quick to understand. The girl left the room hastily and closed the door behind her, but even as she turned away she heard the Imp's voice raised in strange, choked words, new to the vocabulary of Mercedes Centi.

"Oh, Sister," it said, "dear Sister, I am sorry. Forgive me. I will be good. I will always be good."

May Iverson hurried back to the Commencement Hall. Mingled with her satisfaction at the outcome of Sister Ernesta's experiment was her wonder at the sympathy and understanding that lay behind it.

"How did she know?" she asked herself. "For years she has not taught, and she has not seemed to notice us. Yet now she takes