Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/288

 a child that has baffled the entire convent and promptly finds the key to her nature. I wonder why?"

She ventured to ask Sister Ernesta in the evening. The nun was tired, for an hour's talk with the Imp in an absolutely new phase of feeling had exhausted a vitality none too great at best. And after it they had gone together to the great hall and, side by side before the large audience of Sisters and pupils, had stood together as the Imp made her public confession and apology. It was a picture not to be forgotten—the venerable nun and the child facing their little world, hand in hand, while Mercedes Centi, never again the Imp, laid the white foundation-stone of her future admirable career at St. Mary's. The Saint was very pale and looked older and more feeble than ever before in the fading light of the late afternoon. The erstwhile Imp seemed very small and very moist and sadly pathetic, but the courage of her ancestors was still in her, and she uttered her confession in a clear voice, with her head and shoulders well back. Subsequently she kissed several little girls who seemed to wish this demonstration—and this was the capstone of the monument of self-abasement she so gallantly raised that day.

May Iverson still seemed to see the picture