y the
doleful chant, nor by the flutter of the white surplice and the
official drone about the grave. All the convent had followed the
prelates down the garden paths; by the side of the grave Latin
prayers were recited and holy water was sprinkled. On the day the
Prioress was buried there were few clouds in the sky, sunshine was
pretty constant, and all the birds were singing in the trees; every
moment Evelyn expected one of her bullfinches to come out upon a
bough and sing its little stave. If it did, she would take his song
for an omen. But the bullfinches happened to be away, and she wished
that the priests' drone would cease to interrupt the melody of the
birds and boughs. The dear Prioress would prefer Nature's own music,
it was kinder; and the sound of the earth mixed with the stones
falling on the coffin-lid was the last sensation. After it the
prelates and nuns returned to the convent, everybody wondering what
was going to happen next, every nun asking herself who would be
elected Prioress.

"Dear Mother, it is all over now," Evelyn said to Mother Hilda in the
passage, and the last of the ecclesiastics disappeared through a
doorway, going to his lunch.

"Yes, dear Teresa, it is all over so far as this world is concerned.
We must think of her now in heaven."

"And to-morrow we shall begin to think for whom we shall vote--at
least, you will be thinking. I am not a choir sister, and am leaving
you."

"Is that decided, Teresa?"

"Yes, I think so. Perhaps now would be the time for me to take off
this habit; I only retained it at the Prioress's wish. But, Mother,
though I have not discovered a vocation, and feel that you have
wasted much time upon me, still, I wouldn't have you think I am
ungrateful."

"My dear, it never occurred to me to think so." And the two women
walked to the end of the cloister together, Evelyn telling Mother
Hilda about the Prioress and the Prioress's papers.

And from that day onward, for many weeks, Evelyn worked in the
library, collecting her papers, and writing the memoir of the late
Prioress, which, apparently, the nun had wished her to do, though why
she should have wished it Evelyn often wondered, for if she were a
soul in heaven it could matter to her very little what anybody
thought of her on earth. How a soul in heaven must smile at the
importance attached to this rule and to these exercises! How trivial
it all must seem to the soul!... And yet it could not seem trivial to