Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/511



PRING was approaching St. Catharine's with flowery footsteps. The overarching sky was blue, and daisies sprinkled the surrounding meadows,—or, anyhow, if they didn't, we knew they would soon, so I'll just say they did, because it sounds so well. Literary artists are allowed a great deal of poetic license in writing descriptions—even Sister Irmingarde admits that. Therefore when I am writing about facts I keep to them, but when I am writing about Nature I improve on it all I can.

The great convent school hummed with our glad young voices, and any one who came there to visit would have thought we were happy. But, alas! alas! we were not! We had a care—we girls—the carking kind of a care you read about in real stories. Students of life would have observed this, but not the thoughtless visiting parent, who never sees anything but her own child, anyhow, and just comes to St. Catharine's to hear Sister Irmingarde or Reverend Mother tell her how bright and studious her daughter is. We have all too many such guests, and Mabel Blossom and Maudie Joyce and Mabel Muriel Murphy and I are tired of them. We never allow our parents to come. It is not good for them, and it is not good for us, for they make us forget all we know, besides dropping things about how difficult it is to manage us at home. So they have to get along with letters and monthly reports, which are indeed all any reasonable parent should demand. And if they want to know how bright we are, we can tell them about it ourselves. Of course we try to be affectionate and dutiful and considerate, and sometimes we write to each other's parents when one of us does anything special. Maudie wrote a beautiful letter to mamma the first time Sister Irmingarde read one of my stories aloud to the class, and Mabel Blossom wrote to Mabel Muriel Murphy's father once after Mabel Muriel had improved so much. Mr. Murphy wrote back. He said:

"—Yours of the 16th inst. received and contents noted. My wife and I hope our daughter ain't improved too much. We think she was about right as she was. Your obt. servant, ."

Mabel was quite discouraged, for Mabel Muriel did not appreciate her noble act, either, and said something about people who rushed in where she had feared to tread. I will now explain that all these facts, interesting and vital though they are, have nothing to do with this story. I am not writing about parents who visit their children at school, though I could write some things that would surprise them if Sister Irmingarde would let me, for I have studied them all with keen, observant eyes when they little knew it. But I wished to utter a few thoughtful words concerning what happens when they come, and how the teachers have to ask girls all the easiest questions when their mothers are in the class-room, and this seemed the best place to do it. One of my literary mottoes is as follows: Whenever you think of a good thing put it right down, no matter where it comes. I will now take up the thread of this narrative.

We were unhappy. Under the smiles that curved our young lips lay heavy hearts. Spring was glad, but we were not. I will tell why:

Examinations were coming.

It is very queer about examinations. I suppose after one has graduated, and gone out into the big world, and listened to the trumpet-calls of fame, and sat on its pinnacle a while, one forgets about examinations. We know from our physiology that the sensibilities are dulled in age, anyhow. But when you are only