But Evelyn was not of the material which makes nuns. The convent appealed to her neither as an escape from sin, nor a barrier to temptation. She loved part of the life, and turned from much in loathing. When she was seventeen it frightened her no longer. Her childish rebellion at petty penances, at the narrow outlook of women whose breasts had never thrilled at the touch of a child’s lips, yet who pathetically demanded the title of "Mother" as a cherished claim, had changed to pity. Each grim line that repression had seared on brow or cheek seemed now to Evelyn as a wound received in mortal combat against the glowing, ardent youth that leaped so fearlessly in her own veins at sight and sound of growing things, green shoots of trees, showing timidly, early violets lifting shy heads, the twittering of the mother bird teaching her young to spread her wings. She knew and understood no more of her own nature than this—that it was good to live in spring and summer and early autumn, while even some winter days had their own stinging joy—that the blood which was daily wet on Mother Veronica’s discipline, the hair-sheet by which that young and tender flesh was lacerated, were alike protests against intoxicating dreams.... Yet dreams were sweet, and why should they be broken? Another picture. The convent chapel this time; the hour of Benediction which she loved. Warm glow from the altar, warm glow about her heart. A suffused radiance from the lamps that burned day and night before the Body of the Lord; a wave of light, from the candles upon the altar, that seemed to roll upward as the incense soared, a vivid golden cloud that changed its shape momentarily, and was always beautiful, carrying your eye higher and higher until its glance rested at last in perfect peace upon the jewelled monstrance and pyx that held the Sacred Host. The nun’s song stilled—that swan-song of dead womanhood—the hush of concentrated prayer—silence—the tinkling of a bell—the blessing that bathed one in a sea of light....