"HE HATH PUT DOWN THE MIGHTY."
"Magnificat anima mea Dominum." The exquisite voice rose and fell daintily on the incense-laden air.
"Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo," responded the chorus in triumphant harmony.
It was a Sunday evening in early June and the hour for Vesper service at Saint Zita's convent. Reverend Mother mounted the staircase leading to the chapel, then paused, with her hand upon the door, to listen as the wonderful soprano again took up the refrain:
"Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae."
"Poor child, poor child," whispered Reverend Mother, opening the door and gliding noiselessly to her stall, where she knelt with bowed head and prayed as she had never prayed before; prayed in fear and trembling for the future of the girl whose voice had earned for her the title of "the nightingale of Saint Zita's."
Reverend Mother had always dreaded the day when she must part with this dearly loved child who had been entrusted to her care some ten years before. A gentleman had come to Saint Zita's bringing with him his little daughter of six. A man of grave, even stern aspect, there was yet a look in his eyes which filled the nun's heart with a great pity; it was the look of one who had suffered deeply and in silence. He was a man of few words and his errand was quickly explained. He was obliged to be absent from home the greater part of the time and could not attend to the education of his little girl as he would like to do. His wife was not of our faith and was also too busily occupied to look after the child. He did not mention that her occupation was that of society butterfly, who sacrificed homelife, husband and child in the pursuit of pleasure. Would Reverend Mother kindly undertake the charge of his little Nita's education, spiritual as well as intellectual? Would she be to the child what father and mother ought to be and could not?
Reverend Mother had gladly undertaken the task, and since then Nita had never been separated from her even for a day. During the vacations, when other pupils scattered far and wide to their various homes, Nita had remained at the convent, roaming at will through the deserted class-room and beautiful grounds. She was the pet and darling of the entire community. In the long summer afternoons when the nuns carried their sewing out to the orchard behind the house, or to the pine grove on the hill, where one could obtain such a lovely view of the river, Nita would flit about amongst them like a veritable woodland fairy. Her snatches of song and merry laughter made sylvan echoes ring and brought smiles to the faces of the simple women who watched her with loving sympathetic glances.
Many a time, especially of late, had Reverend Mother looked at her with anxious foreboding in her eyes. What would the future hold for this child of hers, endowed as she was with singular beauty and a wonderful voice? She was a docile child, sunny and sweet-tempered, and that very pliancy of nature was what caused the nun many a moment of uneasiness. What would become of her once she had left the shelter of her convent home and was exposed to the influence of the light-hearted, merry, soulless mother from whom she had inherited her beauty; the mother whose only god was pleasure, whose one ambition was to be the best dressed, the most popular, the most envied woman in her set. The only hope lay in keeping Nita at the convent as long as possible, or at least until her character had developed sufficiently to enable her to enter her mother's world and hold her own against it. Still, Reverend Mother dreaded the day when she must part with her child, and now that the parting had come so unexpectedly, so much sooner than she had anticipated, it was doubly hard to bear.