"Were you getting impatient? I'm sorry, but you know our time is not our own."
The nun sat down, and Alex flung, rather than sat herself in her favourite position on the floor, her arms resting on the Superior's knee.
"What is the matter?" asked Mother Gertrude. "What was troubling you just before I came in, Alex?"
"You always know," said Alex, in quick, passionate recognition of an intuition that it had hitherto been her share to exercise on behalf of another, never to receive.
"Your face is not so very difficult to read, and I think I know you pretty well by this time."
"Better than any one," said Alex, in all good faith, and unaware that certain aspects of herself, such as she showed to Barbara, or to her father and mother when they angered or frightened her, had never yet been called forth in the Superior's presence, and probably never would be.
"Well, what was it? Was it our Mother Foundress?"
"How did you know?" gasped Alex, unseeing of the still open book lying on the table.
Mother Gertrude did not refer to it. She passed her hand slowly over the upturned head. Alex had thrown off her hat.
"I was looking at the picture of her. It seemed so difficult to realize that any one who actually formed a new religious Order could live almost now-a-days and be a girl just like myself."