No! ’tis our lot to save the failing breath,
’Tis ours to heal each wound, and hush each moan,
To take from other hearts the pain into our own.”
“It seems to me,” said Tony, “that we are expected to do all the work, and have none of the fun.”
“It seems to me,” said Marie, “that by the time we have filled ourselves up with other people’s pains, we won’t care much about fun. Did Reverend Mother, I wonder, heal wounds and hush up moans?”
“St. Elizabeth did,” explained Elizabeth. “Her husband went to the Holy Land, and was killed, and then she became a nun. There are some lines at the end, that I don’t know yet, about Reverend Mother,—
‘Seeking the shelter of the cloister gate,
Like the dear Saint whose name we venerate.’
Madame Rayburn wants me to make an act, and learn the rest of it at recreation this afternoon. That horrid old geography takes up all my study time.”
“I’ve made three acts to-day,” observed Lilly complacently, “and said a whole pair of beads this morning at Mass for the spiritual bouquet.”