She smiled at me. "Why, you will—" she began, and stopped.
"You may have her," I said, quietly.
She kissed me. "We'll make her happy," she promised. "I suppose," she added, "we couldn't take her away to-night? Of course the first thing in the morning will do," she concluded, hastily, as she met my indignant gaze.
"Josephine Morgan," I gasped, "I never met such selfishness! Of course you can't have her to-night. You can't have her in the morning, either. You've got to adopt her legally, with red seals and things. It will take lots of time."
Mrs. Morgan laughed, passing a tender finger through one of Maria Annunciata's short curls. "We'll do it," she said. "We'll do anything. And we're going to be in New York all winter, so you can be with her a great deal while she's getting used to us. Now I'll go." But she lingered, making a pretext of tucking in the bedclothes around us. "You've seen the Sentinel," she asked, "with that story about you?"
I shook my head at her. "Don't, please," I begged. "We'll talk about that to-morrow."
She kissed the deep dimple in Maria Annunciata's left cheek. "Good night," she said, again. "You'll never know how happy you have made us."
The door closed behind her. I raised my hand and pressed the button above my head. Around me the friendly darkness settled, and a silence as warm and friendly. In the hollow of my neck the face of Maria Annunciata rested, a short curl tickling my cheek. I recalled "the great silence" that fell over the convent at nine o'clock when the lights went out, but to-night the reflection did not bring its usual throb of homesickness and longing. Relaxed, content, I lay with eyes wide open, looking into the future. Without struggle, without self-analysis, but firmly and for all time, I had decided not to be a nun.
IX
THE REVOLT OF TILDY MEARS
Every seat in the primitive town hall was occupied, and a somber frieze of Dakota plainsmen and their sad-faced wives decorated the rough, unpainted sides of the building. On boxes in the narrow aisles, between long rows of pine boards on which were seated the early arrivals, late-comers squatted discontentedly, among them a dozen women carrying fretful babies, to whom from time to time they addressed a comforting murmur as they swung them, cradle-fashion, in their tired arms.