just as though all dresses were
supposed to be new. She knew that these were not things that they had
learned by studying. They just grew up to them, just as she knew how
to throw a fishing line and hold a rifle.

But she wanted all those things that they had; wanted them all
passionately. She had the sense to know that those were not great
things. But they were the things that would make her like these other
girls. And she wanted to be like them.

Because she had not grown up with other girls, because she had never
even had a girl playmate, she wanted not to miss any of the things
that they had and were.

They baffled her, these girls. Her own quick, eager mind sprang at
books and fairly tore the lessons from them. She ran away from the
girls in anything that could be learned in that way. But when she
found herself with two or three of them they talked a language that
she did not know. She could not keep up with them. And she was stupid
and awkward, and felt it. It was not easy to break into their world
and be one of them.

Then there was that other world, touching the world of the girls but
infinitely removed from it--the world of the sisters.

That mysterious cloister from which the sisters came and gave their
hours of teaching or duty and to which they retreated back again was a
world all by itself.

What was there in there behind those doors that never banged? What was
there in there that made the sisters all so very much alike? They must
once have been as different as every girl is different from every
other girl.

How was it that they could carry with them all day long that air of
never being tired or fretted or worried? What wonderful presence was
there behind the doors of that cloistered house that seemed to come
out with them and stay with them all the time? What was the light that
shone in their faces?

Was it just because they were always contented and happy? What did
they have to be happy about?

Ruth had tried to question the other girls about this. They were
Catholics. They ought to know. But Bessie Donnelly had brushed her
question aside with a stare:

"Sisters always look like that."

So Ruth did not ask any more. But her mind kept prying at that world
of the sisters behind those walls. What did they do in there? Did
they laugh and talk and scold each other, like people? Or did they
just pray all the time? Or did they see wonderful, starry visions of
God and Heaven that they were always