"Just now," Alicia said, "the shadows under your eyes are brushed too
deep."
"I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory."
"Horrible! All the little privacies of life--don't you miss them?"
"I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given me
the luxury of curtains--I don't miss them. An occasional blind--a closed
door--and those we got even at the Institution. The decencies are
strictly conserved, believe me."
"One imagines that kind of place is always clean."
"When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and
believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also--dear
commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there is
some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is
very like other women."
"It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the Sisters receive
you--with the harp and the psaltery?"
"That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I expected. On the
contrary, they snubbed me--they really did. There were two of them. I
said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange to
me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it.
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