"It is an appalling waste. But he
will offer himself up."
Alicia looked unsatisfied. "He brought Mr. Lappe to tea," Miss Howe
said.
The shadow went. "Should you think Brother Lappe," she demanded,
"specially fitted for the cure of souls? Never, never, could I allow the
process of my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. He has such a
little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, and such fat, sloping shoulders.
Dear succulent Brother Lappe!"
A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of inspection. Alicia
bowed sweetly and the Sister inclined herself briefly with a cloistered
smile. As she disappeared, Hilda threw a black skirt over her head,
making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered the visit, the
noiseless measured, step, the little deprecating movements of inquiry,
the benevolent recognition of a visitor from a world where people
carried parasols and wore spotted muslins. She even effaced herself at
the door on the track of the other to make it perfect, and came tack in
the happy expansion of an artistic effort to find Alicia's regard
penetrated with the light of a new conviction.
"Hilda," she said, "I should like to know what this last year has really
been to you.
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