Beryl Corselas sat up, her slim, childish body quivering. “I won’t go!” her voice low and passionate. “You know there are no weeds for me to dig up. I hate gardens. I wish everything in yours would die, or else choke you when you ate it--nasty, nasty old onions!” she cried, in a transport of temper. “Beryl!” Even Andria, who hated Sister Felicitas, was aghast. “You can do your weeding or not, that is for you to say,” said Sister Felicitas, whose face was quite untroubled, but she was trilling her fingers against her black habit. “But it is for me to say what will happen to you if you disobey.” “I don’t care what you do to me!” “No?” Andria knew that far-off sound in Sister Felicitas’ voice; there was not a girl in the convent whose nerves did not twitch when she heard it. “Then I suppose I can send those rabbits of yours to market! It will be time for rabbit-soup soon.” “No, no, no!” The child’s voice was dreadful in its wild scream of supplication. If there had been any one in the empty corridor they must have hurried to the sound of it. “Not my bunnies. I love them. They’re truly people. You--you couldn’t be so wicked!” “If you can talk such nonsense about your rabbits, the sooner they are gone the better,” said Sister Felicitas icily. “No--get up, child! You will tear my habit.” For Beryl Corselas was on the floor, clutching at the immaculate black folds of the sister’s robe. “You won’t take them away--say you won’t, sister!” She paid no attention to the hand that tried to disengage hers. “I’ll do anything, I’ll work in the garden, I’ll say I’m sorry----” The miserable voice made a listener start, but Sister Felicitas only drew her skirts away deftly. “That you will be obliged to do,” she said. “I’ll beg your pardon now,” sobbed Beryl, “only please don’t send my rabbits to market! I’ll go and weed--I truly will.” “You make an idol of senseless things. You will be better without them.” In “the world” the tone would have been called cruel. The child jumped to her feet, her wild, dusky hair streaming, her face white and furious. “If you take them away I’ll kill you!” she cried out, shaking and gasping. “I hate you! You make me wicked, and then punish me. I----” She stopped as if something had turned her to stone. In the doorway stood the reverend mother. Mother Benedicta, who had never been known to visit an alcove, who was high above the girls and their rulers, was in front of her, a gracious, stately figure in her black habit and white bands. There was a curious look on her beautiful, placid face, enough to stop the tongue even of Beryl Corselas in a temper. Yet she was not looking at the child, but at Sister Felicitas.