last she said:

"Didn't we forget to say our prayers, Mary?"

So I got up again and Sister Angela said one of the beautiful prayers
out of our prayer-book. But her voice was very low and when she came to
the words:

"O Father of all mankind, forgive all sinners who repent of their sins,"
she broke down altogether.

I thought she was ill, but she said it was only a cold she had caught in
crossing the garden and I was to go to sleep like a good girl and think
no more about her.

But in the middle of the night I awoke, and Sister Angela was crying.

FIFTEENTH CHAPTER

Most of the girls were depressed when they returned to school, but Alma
was in high spirits, and on the first night of the term she crept over
to my bed and asked what we had been doing during the holidays.

"Not a thing, eh?"

I answered that we had done lots of things and been very happy.

"Happy? In this gloomy old convent? You and Sister Angela alone?"

I told her we had two lay sisters-and then there was Father Giovanni.

"Father Giovanni? That serious old cross-bones?"

I said he was not always serious, and that on Christmas Day he had come
to tea and kissed me under the mistletoe.

"Kissed you under the mistletoe!" said Alma, and then she whispered
eagerly,

"He didn't kiss Sister Angela, did he?"

I suppose I was flattered by her interest, and this loosened my tongue,
for I answered:

"He kissed her hand, though."

"Kissed her hand? My! . . . Of course she was very angry . . . wasn't
she angry?"

I answered no, and in my simplicity I proceeded to prove this by
explaining that Sister Angela had taken Father Giovanni down to the
door, and when he was ill she had nursed him.

"Nursed him? In his own house, you mean?"

"Yes, at night, too, and she stayed until he was better, and caught a
cold coming back."

"Well, I never!" said Alma, and I remember that I was very pleased with
myself during this interview, for by the moonlight which was then
shining into the room, I could see that Alma's eyes were sparkling.

The next night we recommenced our conferences in bed, when Alma told us
all about her holiday, which she had spent "way up in St. Moritz," among
deep snow and thick ice, skating, bobbing, lugging, and above all riding
astride, and dragging a man on skis behind her.

"Such lots of fun," she said. And the best of it was at night when there
were dances and fancy-dress balls with company which included all the
sma