Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked For. Charlotte M. Yonge

the other after dinner. It was possible to go to St. Andrew’s matins at ten o’clock before the drawing class, and to St. Kenelm’s at five, after the music was over. Magdalen, whenever it was possible, went with her sisters on their bicycles to St. Andrew’s, and sometimes devised errands that she might join them at St. Kenelm’s, but neither could always be done by the head of the household. And she could perceive that her company was not specially welcome.

      Valetta, the only one of the Clipstone family whose drawing was worth cultivating, used to ride into Rockstone, escorted by her brother Wilfred, who was in course of “cramming” with a curate on his way to his tutor, and Vera found in casual but well-cultivated meetings and partings, abundant excitement in “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,” and now and then in the gift of a flower.

      Paula on the other hand found equal interest and delight in meetings with Sister Mena, especially after a thunderstorm had driven the two to take refuge at what the Sisters called “the cell of St. Kenelm,” and tea had unfolded their young simple hearts to one another! Magdalen had called on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain provincial twang in her voice. She had a vehement desire for self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience. She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena, a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm’s a nucleus for a Sisterhood of her own invention.

      Sister Mena had been bred up in a Sisterhood’s school, from five years old and upwards, and had no near relatives. Mr. Flight was Saint, Pope and hero to both, and Mena knew little beyond the horizon of St. Kenelm’s, but she and Paula were fascinated with one another; and Magdalen saw more danger in interfering than in acquiescing, though she gave no consent to Paulina’s aspirations after admission into the perfect Sisterhood that was to be.