s when the Reverend Mother said,

"Children, I have a word to say to you. You all know that one of our
novices has left us. You also know that one of our scholars has just
gone. It is my wish that you should forget both of them, and I shall
look upon it as an act of disobedience if any girl in the Convent ever
mentions their names again."

All that day I was in deep distress, and when, night coming, I took my
troubles to bed, telling myself I had now lost Alma also, and it was all
my fault, somebody put her arms about me in the darkness and whispered:

"Mary O'Neill, are you awake?"

It was Mildred, and I suppose my snuffling answered her, for she said:

"You mustn't cry for Alma Lier. She was no friend of yours, and it was
the best thing that ever happened to you when she was turned out of the
convent."

SIXTEENTH CHAPTER

A child lives from hour to hour, and almost at the same moment that my
heart was made desolate by the loss of my two friends it was quickened
to a new interest.

Immediately after the departure of Sister Angela and Alma we were all
gathered in the Meeting Room for our weekly rehearsal of the music of
the Benediction--the girls, the novices, the nuns, the Reverend Mother,
and a Maestro from the Pope's choir, a short fat man, who wore a black
soutane and a short lace tippet.

Benediction was the only service of our church which I knew, being the
one my mother loved best and could do most of for herself in the
solitude of her invalid room, but the form used in the Convent differed
from that to which I had been accustomed, and even the _Tantum ergo_ and
the _O Salutaris Hostia_ I could not sing.

On this occasion a litany was added which I had heard before, and then
came a hymn of the Blessed Virgin which I remembered well. My mother
sang it herself and taught me to sing it, so that when the Maestro,
swinging his little ivory baton, began in his alto voice--

"_Ave maris stella,
Dei Mater alma--_"

I joined in with the rest, but sang in English instead of Latin Of all
appeals to the memory that of music is the strongest, and after a moment
I forgot that I was at school in Rome, being back in my mother's room in
Ellan, standing by her piano and singing while she played. I think I
must have let my little voice go, just as I used to do at home, when it
rang up to the wooden rafters, for utterly lost to my surroundings I had
got as far as--

"_Virgin of all virgins