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cted in the great dining-hall; that the Superior, however, had ordered that they should be shown over the convent. The two nuns led the way through the main passage. Their step was hard and noisy, for they wore wooden shoes fastened to the feet by leather straps over the stockings. The smaller and prettier nun, with her delicate features pinched up in the close-fitting cap, had kept herself timidly in the background, allowing the other to do the talking. But now she addressed the girl in the blue muslin dress, speaking in French. The mother gave a nod of satisfaction to the father, as much as to say, "There, now; you see it was worth while to let the child learn something; that was my doing, and you only reluctantly consented." The father could not refrain from informing the nun with the big nose that his daughter, Lina, had returned, only six months before, from the Convent of the "Sacred Heart" at Aix-la-Chapelle. The stranger also spoke a few words in French to the pretty nun. But now, and as often as he addressed her, she drew herself shyly back, apparently not from timidity, but with a nervous involuntary shrinking into herself. The breakfast-room, school-room, and music-room, and the large dormitories were shown to the strangers, and they admired the neatness and good order everywhere seen. Especially in the sleeping-rooms everything was arranged as prettily and neatly, as if not real human beings, much less careless children, inhabited them, but as if everything had been made ready for fairy visitants. In one little bed only was there any disturbance. Lina drew back the curtain, and a child with great brown eyes looked up. The young man had also come to the bedside. "What is the matter with the child?" asked Lina. "Only homesickness." "Only homesickness," said the stranger in a low tone to himself, while the lady asked, "How do you cure homesickness?" "The housekeeper has a sure method; a child complaining of homesickness is put on the sick-list, and must stay in bed; when she is allowed to get up, the homesickness is gone, and she feels at home." "Go away, all of you! go away! I want Manna, I want Manna," moaned the child. "She will come soon," said the nun, soothingly, adding in explanation, "No one but an American girl can pacify the child." "That must be our Manna," said Lina to her mother. The twilight was gathering, and through the galleries, in the golden evening light, strange forms rustled in long gre
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