ife and death. We have babbled about it
ever since, trying to forget or explain it, without, however, doing
either; I tried to forget it on the stage, and did not succeed, but
it was not fear of death that brought me here. The nuns do not
succeed better than I; all screens are unavailing, for the wind is
about everywhere--a cold, searching wind, which prayers cannot keep
out; our doorways are not staunch--the wind comes under the door of
the actress's dressing-room and under the door of the nun's cell in
draughts chilling us to the bone, and then leaving us to pursue our
avocations for a time in peace. The Prioress thought that in coming
here she had discovered a way to heaven, yet she was anxious to
defend herself from her detractors upon earth. If she had believed in
her celestial inheritance she would have troubled very little, and I
should be free to go away now. Perhaps it is better as it is," she
reflected. And it seemed to her that no effort on her part was called
for or necessary. She was certain she was drifting, and that the
current would carry her to the opposite bank in good time; she was
content to wait, for had she not promised the Prioress to perform a
certain task? And it was part of her temperament to leave nothing
undone; she also liked a landmark, and the finishing of her book
would be a landmark.

She was even a little curious to see what turn the convent affairs
would take, and as she sat biting the end of her pen, thinking, the
sound of an axe awoke her from her reverie. Trees were being felled
in the garden; "and an ugly, red-brick building will be run up, in
which children of city merchants will be taught singing and the
piano." Was it contempt for the world's ignorance in matters of art
that filled her heart? or was she animated with a sublime pity for
those parents who would come to her (if she remained in the convent,
a thing she had no intention of doing) to ask her, Evelyn Innes, if
she thought that Julia would come to something if she were to
persevere, or if Kitty would succeed if she continued to practice
"The Moonlight Sonata," a work of the beauty of which no one in the
convent had any faintest comprehension? She herself had some gifts,
and, after much labour, had brought her gifts to fruition, not to any
splendid, but to some fruition. It was not probable that any one who
came to the convent would do more than she had done; far better to
learn knitting or cooking--anything in the worl