Elizabeth G. Jordan

“ For Miss Twombly was taking herself very seriously, which, perhaps, was due in part to her extreme youth and in part to a lack of the saving grace of humor.
After a year or two had passed, however, she found herself doing with eager hands and a lighter heart the work around her. They had been right—those friends who advised her when she was graduated. The great world held infinite opportunities for a woman with health, youth, charity, and wealth. It was worth while, this chosen career of hers, broken into though it was by the demands of that other social life which must be lived as well. ”

“ Society did not know as much about her career as it wished, but it heard and saw enough to be highly diverted. It knew that the charming girl in white was equally at home and equally welcome in drawing-rooms and tenements, with box parties and in hospitals, on tally-hos and in prison wards. Sharp contrasts add spice to life, and here were contrasts to satisfy the most exacting. With it all Miss Twombly was fascinating, and full of charms which made many youths sigh hopelessly and long. ”

“ Now I love you as a man loves in his mature manhood. There will never be another woman for me. I will make you happy. I will help you in your work. You shall live your own life—only let me share it. Let me put into it the love that should be in it—such love as no woman can afford to put away from her, no matter what else the world offers her. ”

“ No Sister in the Order is more content in her choice than I. Never for one moment have I regretted making the decision that brought me here. Yet even I, happy in my vocation, beg you to think again before you turn away from the love of a good man. Your place is in the world. ”

“ The nun straightened herself with a sudden air of decision.
"Sit up, Alice," she said. "I want you to look at me." She took the girl's face between her hands and looked deep into the eyes that showed her how genuine the other's suffering had been. There was an unusual tenderness in her manner as she continued.
"I shall try to help you, my dear," she said, " but not in the way you wish. I think—I am almost sure—you should marry Dr. Schuyler. We have felt here that we could not keep you always: we have believed that the One Man would some day come for you. Is he not here?" ”

“ She would not yield—she would not give up her people and her work and her gentle cloister friends. Somehow, it was a fixed conclusion with her that she could not have him and them, too. It was well enough to say that he would help her—no doubt he meant it. But she thought she knew herself too well to believe her work could be the vital thing it had been, if he came into her life as he wished to come. Now was the time to show the earnestness of the spirit in which she had joined the Third Order. Now was the time for a Sacrifice. ”

“ She would see him once more. They would have at least a parting—something to recall in the dreary days to come; and in the mean time she would fortify herself by a little visit to the convent. In the chapel, and with the nuns, she would find strength for the renunciation she had determined finally and definitely to make.
She drove to the old building and waited in the convent garden for her favorite among the inmates—Sister George. The world itself seemed to be in league against her as she sat by the sleepy fountain, for all nature was a love-song that June day. ”

“ The girl still stared at her, surprised beyond speech. Her astonishment was vividly written in her face, and the nun smiled in perfect understanding of her thoughts.
"It seems to me," resumed Sister George, slowly, "that you are in danger of becoming a little morbid in your attitude. Because this step would mean happiness, you feel that you should put it from you. Yet why? God did not put us into the world to be miserable. Dr. Schuyler is a Catholic, and he loves the work you love. Why should you doubt that he will keep his word? He helped the poor long years before he knew you. ”

“ Schuyler met her after that they worried the meat from the conversational bone of Sanitary Tenement Buildings and parted with mutual dissatisfaction. It was at this point that Miss Twombly obviously shunned Dr. Schuyler, while society, with an expansive smile, proceeded to fix its eyes upon the two. Here, also, this tale properly begins.
Love, when it becomes part of the experience of a repressed and self-contained girl with a Life Work, usually fills up the foreground of her existence as completely as if it were the Sphinx itself. Miss Twombly observed this. ”

“ I shall say 'Yes' to-night. Yes,—yes,—yes!"
The nun bent and kissed her on the forehead. "God bless you," she said, "and make you happy. About the future you need have, I think, no foreboding. Dr. Schuyler is not a man to break his word." She looked up over the garden as she spoke. For the girl at her side, life was beginning to expand. ”

“ They of the cloister had long doubted the child's continuance in her chosen career; not that they lacked faith in her, but because they knew the ways of life.
"The man," she hazarded; "he must be good if you care for him."
"He is—he is all that is good," came the stifled tones from the head now buried in her lap. "He is so kind, so generous, he does so much for my poor people. It was through them that I met him, for he works among them too. He is Dr. Richard Schuyler."
The nun looked at the water bubbling in the fountain near them. ”

“ Having discovered that in such lines her inclinations lay, Miss Twombly conscientiously refrained from doing any of these things. She plunged into work feverishly for a day or two, even though at the end of that time she knew she must laboriously fight her battle all over again. It was humiliating to a proud spirit, but it had to be endured. Dr. Schuyler did not materially aid the situation when, having himself fought a similar fight in vain, he came to her like a man and asked her to be his wife. ”

“ In the mean time the days had gone by, and she had not given him his answer. She wrote and specified a certain night when he was to come for it. She told herself reproachfully that she had been neglecting her poor, putting the real things of life from her while she dreamed idle dreams. She thought she despised herself. She repeated this to herself as time passed, and the eventful day came. She would give him his answer that night, and it should be "No." ”