“I’m glad you have a friend of your own age,” Nancy said to Letizia, when the morning after her arrival they were walking together along the convent avenue strewn with October’s fallen leaves. “Well, she’s not a very great friend,” Letizia demurred. “But I thought you wrote and told me that she was so very nice?” “Well, she is very nice. Only I don’t like her very much.” “But if she’s so very nice, why don’t you like her?” “Well, I don’t like her, because she _is_ so nice. Whenever I say, ‘Let’s do something,’ she says, ‘Oh, yes, do let’s,’ and then I don’t want to do it so much.” “Darling, isn’t that being rather perverse?” “What’s ‘perverse,’ mother? Do tell me, because I’m collecting difficult words. I’ve got thirty-eight words now, and when I’ve got fifty I’m going to ask Hilda Moore what they all mean, and she’s twelve and it’ll be a disgusting humiliation for her when she doesn’t know. And that’ll be simply glorious, because she thinks she’s going to be a yellow-ribbon presently.” “But don’t you want to be a yellow-ribbon?” “Oh, I don’t think it’s really worth while. Evelyn Joy who’s much the nicest girl in the school has never been a ribbon. She said she couldn’t be bothered. She’s frightfully nice, and I love her one of the best six people in the world. She can’t be bothered about anything, and most of the girls are always in a fuss about something. Dorothy Andrews only wants to do what I want, because she thinks she ought to. Fancy, she told me she simply longed to be a saint. And she said if she died young she’d pray for me more than anybody, and I said, ‘Pooh, St. Maurice is _always_ praying for me and he wears armour and is very good-looking, so there’s no need for you to die young.’ And then she cried and said when she was dead I’d be sorry I’d been so cruel.” Nancy thought that Letizia was not less precocious than she had always been, and she wondered if she ought to say anything to Sister Catherine about it. She decided that Sister Catherine was probably well aware of it and, not being anxious to give her the idea that she was criticising the wonderful education that the nuns were giving her little daughter, she resolved to say nothing. She did, however, discuss with Sister Catherine her own project to go to Italy and have her voice trained; and she was much relieved when it was approved. “It would be wrong not to avail yourself of such an opportunity,” the nun exclaimed. “Even if it involved breaking into your own savings, I should still urge you to go; but there seems no likelihood of that, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t accept this Mr. Kenrick’s offer. I’d no idea that you had a wonderful voice, and how delightful to be going to Italy. Do sing for us one evening at Vespers before you go. Sister Monica would be so pleased, and we shall all enjoy it so much. We shall feel so grand.”