"It seems to _me_," said Marie, "that by the time we have filled ourselves up with other people's pains, we won't care much about fun. Did Reverend Mother, I wonder, heal wounds and hush up moans?" "St. Elizabeth did," explained Elizabeth. "Her husband went to the Holy Land, and was killed, and then she became a nun. There are some lines at the end, that I don't know yet, about Reverend Mother,-- 'Seeking the shelter of the cloister gate, Like the dear Saint whose name we venerate.' Madame Rayburn wants me to make an act, and learn the rest of it at recreation this afternoon. That horrid old geography takes up all my study time." "I've made three acts to-day," observed Lilly complacently, "and said a whole pair of beads this morning at Mass for the spiritual bouquet." "I haven't made one act," I cried aghast. "I haven't done anything at all, and I don't know what to do." "You might make one now," said Elizabeth thoughtfully, "and go talk to Adelaide Harrison." I glanced at Adelaide, who was sitting on the edge of her desk, absorbed in a book. "Oh, I don't want to," I wailed. "If you wanted to, it wouldn't be an act," said Elizabeth. "But she doesn't want me to," I urged. "She is reading 'Fabiola.'" "Then you'll give her the chance to make an act, too," said the relentless Elizabeth. Argued into a corner, I turned at bay. "I won't," I said resolutely; to which Elizabeth replied: "Well, I wouldn't either, in your place," and the painful subject was dropped. Four days before the feast the excitement had reached fever point, though the routine of school life went on with the same smooth precision. Every penny had been hoarded up for the candy fair. It was with the utmost reluctance that we bought even the stamps for our home letters, those weekly letters we were compelled to write, and which were such pale reflections of our eager and vehement selves. Perhaps this was because we knew that every line was read by Madame Bouron before it left the convent; perhaps the discipline of those days discouraged familiarity with our parents; perhaps the barrier which nature builds between the adult and the normal child was alone responsible for our lack of spontaneity. Certain it is that the stiffly written pages despatched to father or to mother every Sunday night gave no hint of our abundant and restless vitality, our zest for the little feast of life, our exaltations, our resentments, our thrice-blessed absurdities. Entrenched in the citadel of childhood, with laws of our own making, and passwords of our own devising, our souls bade defiance to the world.