Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/72

, dropping into the different rooms and inspiring the girls to fresh efforts. Sometimes she would sit down and talk with them about their music, and point out their mistakes, and correct their technique, and so on. It was really a kind of supplementary lesson, and they adored her so that they actually paid attention to what she said, and got some good from it. Once in a long time she would speak of other things. Of course, the girls were always trying to make her do this, but they didn't often succeed. When they did it was interesting. We used to meet and compare notes. It was plain to all of us that Sister Chrysostom had not stepped right out of a class-room into a nun's habit, as so many of the Sisters had. She had seen life. She was really a woman of the world. She understood human nature—and we could see that our point of view amused her.

In the convent, of course, the greenest girls put on airs, in a way, over the nuns. The least experienced feels that she has more worldly wisdom than the Sisters, and usually she is right. The day pupils live at home and have their evenings for amusement, not to speak of their Saturdays and Sundays. Most of them have big brothers and sisters who are in society, and the girls get more information