Chapel was over. The mission was over. It was suppertime, and the girls filed in two long rows to the refectory hall. And, with the relief which came after the concentration of the mission, they were very gay. The nun who presided over the hundred girls was unexacting and the laughter echoed from the head table, where the older girls sat, down to the table where the littlest girls giggled and chattered over their gingercookies and preserves. The enormously fat sister who waited on table smiled at the children and left them an extra plate of cookies. Sister Loretta liked the little ones best and they loved her for she was as happy as she was fat, and always ready to find a hungry child something to eat. Not having enough education to aspire ever to become a mother of the order, Sister Loretta was completely content in being allowed to serve the others. Cecily looked interestedly at Sister Loretta as she piled the dishes on her tray. What had made Sister Loretta choose the life of a nun, she wondered? She wished that she could ask her. She was anxious to find out more about this matter of choice of life--more especially why all these women had deliberately given up the life of a married woman in the world. There must be something more--there must be some objection which she did not know. “Why do they choose to be nuns?” she asked reflectively, leaning one elbow on the table in a most forbidden way. Agnes, sitting beside her, made the orthodox reply. “It’s the holiest life--and the safest.” “Safest from what?” “Oh, temptations, troubles, sorrows.” “Then I don’t see,” said Cecily, “why we don’t all just be nuns and make an end to it.” There was a silence and then a giggle. “Have to enlarge the convent some.” “Be pretty dull outside.” “Never get me to agree to that. Besides, there are reasons----”