that you have real affection for her ... though I must own I have always
wondered in what lay the secret of her popularity in the school?"

"She is so amusing--and so pretty, Mother."

"She is exquisitely pretty. And beauty is one of the most excellent among
all the gifts of God. Our sense of what is beautiful and the delight we
have in the perception of it must linger with us from those days when
Angels walked visibly on earth, and talked with the children of men. A
lovely soul in a lovely body, nothing can be more excellent, but such a
body does not always cage what St. Columb called 'the bird of beauty.' And
we must not be swayed or led by outward and perishable things, that are
illusions, and deceits, and snares."

The Mother-Superior reached out a long arm, and took a solid
leather-bound, red-edged volume from the table, and opened it at a page
marked by a flamingo's feather, whose delicate pink faded at the tip into
rosy-white.

"I was reading this a little while before you came in. If you were not a
little dunce at Greek, you would be able to construe the classic author
for yourself."

"But I am a dunce, dear, and so I leave you to read him to me," said
Lynette triumphantly.

"Well, balance this heavy book, and listen."

She read:

_"'When first the Father of the Immortals fashioned with his
divine hands the human shape:_

_"'An image first he made of red clay from Ida, tempered
with pure water from the stream of Xanthos, and wine from
the golden kylix borne by beautiful Ganymede, and it was
godlike to look upon as a thing fashioned by the hands of
the god. But the clay was not tempered sufficiently and
warped in the drying. Then Zeus Pater fashioned another
shape with more cunning, and this was tempered well and
warped not. And he bent down to breathe between its lips the
living soul. But as he stooped, Hephaistos, jealous of the
divine gift about to be conferred upon the mortal race, sent
from his forges smoke and vapour, which obscured the vision
of the Almighty Workman. So that the imperfect image
received that which was meant for the perfect one._

_"'And Zeus Pater, being angered, said: "See what thy malice
has wrought. Behold, a beautiful soul has been set in a body
unbeauteous and through thine act, and god though I be, I
cannot take back the gift that I have given." Then into the
other image of Man the divine ma