ty, would not have failed to attract. God did not get
her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.

There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the
Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout
ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four
spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be
spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these
Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they
did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they
wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up
from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left
their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not
wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something
of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young
men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail
to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away
astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and
would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist
Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend
would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn.
They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there
happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers,
and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away
disappointed.

She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with
how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect
without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed
to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all
Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful
legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon
Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little
episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at
Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be
very comic.

She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with
the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to
go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and
t