s a good deal of time is
wasted in this garden, which might be devoted to good works?"

"Yes, that has struck us, and we think the best way out of our
difficulties would be a school."

"A school!"

"Something must be done," she said, "and we are thinking of starting
a school. We've received a great deal of encouragement. I believe I
could get twenty pupils to-morrow, but Mother Prioress won't hear of
it. She tells us that we are to pray, and that all will come right.
But even she does not depend entirely upon prayer; she depends upon
Sister Teresa's singing."

"A most uncertain source of income, I should say."

"So we all think."

They walked in silence until within a few yards of the end of the
walk; and, just as they were about to turn, the priest said:

"I was talking at the Bishop's to a priest who has been put in charge
of a parish in one of the poorest parts of South London. There is no
school, and the people are disheartened; and he has gone to live
among them, in a wretched house, in one of the worst slums of the
district. He lives in one of the upper rooms, and has turned the
ground floor, which used to be a greengrocer's shop, into a temporary
chapel and school, and now he is looking for some nuns to help him in
the work. He asked me if I could recommend any, and I thought of you
all here, Sister Winifred, with your beautiful church and garden,
doing, what I call, elegant piety. It has come to seem to me
unbearably sad that you and I and these few here, who could do such
good work, should be kept back from doing it."

"I am afraid our habit, Father, makes that sort of work out of the
question for us." And Sister Winifred dropped her habit for a moment
and let it trail gracefully.

"Long, grey habits, that a speck of dirt will stain, are very
suitable to trail over green swards, but not fit to bring into the
houses of the poor, for fear they should be spoiled. "Oh," he cried,
"I have no patience with such rules, such petty observances. I have
often asked myself why the Bishop chose to put me here, where I am
entirely out of sympathy, where I am useless, where there is nothing
for me to do really, except to try to keep my temper. I have spoken of
this matter to no one before, but, since you have come to speak to me,
Sister Winifred, I, too, must speak. Ever since I've been here I've
been longing for some congenial work--work which I could feel I was
intended to do. It seems hard at times to feel one'