Yet it was with unnecessarily bracing severity that Wilmet observed
to Geraldine, 'Now, don't you go crying, and asking questions, and
worrying Mamma.'
'I suppose no person can be everything at once, far less a girl of
fifteen,' thought Sister Constance, as she drove up to the station in
the omnibus with Cherry, who was too miserable and bewildered to cry
now; not that she was afraid of either the Sister or the Sisterhood,
but only because she had never left home in her life, and felt
exactly like a callow nestling shoved out on the ground with a broken
wing.
In two months more the omnibus was setting her down again, much
nearer plumpness, with a brighter face and stronger spirits. She had
been very full of enjoyment at St. Faith's. She had the visitor's
room, with delightful sacred prints and photographs, and a window
looking out on the sea--a sight enough to fascinate her for hours.
She had been out every fine day on the shore; she had sat in the
pleasant community-room with the kind Sisters, who talked to her as a
woman, not a baby; she had plenty of books; one of the Sisters had
given her daily drawing lessons, and another had read Tasso with her;
she had been to the lovely oratory constantly, and to the beautiful
church on Sunday, and had helped to make the wreaths for the great
May holidays; she had made many new friends, and among them the
doctor, who, if he had hurt her, had never deceived her, and had
really made her more comfortable than she had ever been for the last
five years, putting her in the way of such self-management as might
very possibly avert some of that dreadful liability to be cross.
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