how strange!"

"We are nearly there."

Evelyn started; it was Father Daly speaking to her. "The cottages have
spoilt the appearance on this side, but the view is splendid from the
other."

The lane ascended and Evelyn remembered how the house stood inside a
wall behind some trees, looking westward, the last southern end of the
common land as the windmill was the last northern end. There had been
iron gates when a great City merchant lived in the Georgian house, which
had been gradually transformed to suit the requirements of the sisters.
The melancholy little peal of the bell hanging on a loose wire sounded
far away, and in the interval Evelyn noticed the large double door,
from which the old green paint was peeling. A step was heard within, and
the little shutter which closed the grated peephole in the panel of the
door was drawn back; the eyes and forehead band of a nun appeared for an
instant in the opening; and then with a rattle of keys the door was
hastily opened and the little porteress, with ruddy cheeks and a shy
smile, stood aside to let Evelyn pass in. She kissed the hand of
Monsignor as he turned to her with a kindly word of salutation. "The
Reverend Mother is expecting you," she said, her agitation being due to
the importance of the occasion.

"No doubt they have been praying that I might sing well, poor dears,"
Evelyn thought, as she followed the nun up the paved, covered way.
Through the iron frame-work, woven through and through with creepers and
monthly roses, she caught glimpses of the partly-obliterated carriage
drive, and of the neatly-kept flower beds filled with geraniums and
tall, white asters.

In the hall an Adam's ceiling radiated in graceful lines from a central
medallion, and before a statue of the Sacred Heart a light was burning.
Evelyn remembered how the poor lay sisters laboured to keep the stone
floor spotless, and it was into the parlour on the left, which Evelyn
remembered to be the best parlour, that Sister Angela ushered them.

In the old days, before a sudden crisis on the Stock Exchange had
obliged the owner to sell the house for much less than its true value to
the little community of sisters of the Passion who were then seeking a
permanent house, this room, round which Evelyn and the two priests were
looking for seats, had been used as a morning-room. Three long French
windows looked out on the garden, and the flowers and air made it a
bright, cheerful room, in spite of th