Elizabeth G. Jordan

“ When she discovers Ernestine's last name and knows she is the child of Holstein—" Miss Iverson stopped and smiled in sweet anticipation. Then she caught her friend around the waist and waltzed her lightly along the polished floor.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, when they stopped, "I have discovered a secret about Sister Cecilia? She is starving for music. That seems absurd, doesn't it, when she lives in an atmosphere of it all the time. But I think I know what she wants she is hungry for a great orchestra, or a really wonderful human voice. ”

“ Madame Holstein spoke English correctly and rapidly, but with a marked foreign accent.
"The Sister Cecilia, is it not?" she said. "It is a great pleasure to me to thank you for your kindness to my lonely little girl. Ernestine has written much of you. I think we share her heart among us—you and I and the dear father in Germany."
"You are most kind," said the nun, gently, "but I have really done little for the child that calls for gratitude. She is good and industrious, and I think she is overcoming her loneliness as she knows us better." ”

“ Yet it is always beautiful; they cannot spoil it."
She struck the opening chords. Ernestine sat down on the floor beside the piano-stool, close enough to lay her cheek against her mother's skirt. Sister Cecilia rose as if hypnotized, and leaned against the piano, facing the singer. She was white. Madame Holstein smiled back at her with perfect comprehension of the tumult under the calm exterior she presented.
"By the way," she said, "I asked the Reverend Mother if I may sing to you, and she said yes, most graciously. My little girl wished it, and I longed to do it." ”

“ It was a singular friendship, and the quiet nun heard strange tales of travel and music and musicians and great concerts—vivid little word-pictures unconsciously painted by the child against the gray background of the cloister. Madame Holstein had travelled far with her chubby little girl, and Ernestine had turned wide-open, intelligent eyes on all she saw. Flooding the picture was an atmosphere of German home life. Herr Holstein, the husband and father, was an eminent scholar, held in Germany by his duties as professor in a large university. ”

“ She has sent her little girl here for a few months because she will not keep her in hotels. I am simply existing until I hear her in Le Prophète. Fidès is her best rôle. Fancy how Sister Cecilia would love to hear her," she continued, regretfully. "Poor, dear Cecilia, who lives for music and never hears any but what we have in this convent! It's good, of course, but not to be compared with the singing of great artists like Madame Holstein. She has all that nature and art and years of the best European training can give. New York has gone mad over her. ”

“ The nun sat down beside her and pinched her pink cheek.
"Is it so very hard?" she asked, lightly. "Or is it because the sun is bright and some of the children are playing in the garden? If that is it, every little girl who ever played the piano has felt as you do, and some of those who are enjoying themselves now will be practising by and by, you know, when you are having your sunshine and play."
She wiped Ernestine's eyes with her handkerchief as she spoke, and talked on cheerfully, ignoring the pathetic sniffles that punctuated her remarks. "Or is it Heimweh?" she asked. ”

“ The Sister, the beautiful and kind Sister whom she so dearly loved, was unhappy, or ill, or tired. What to do for her? A sudden realization of the futility of the sympathy of a little girl settled upon Ernestine. At home, when she was tired, her mother sang to her. Here in this lonely convent, when her dolls were ill, she sang to them. Assuredly, singing was the remedy for those who were sad. Yet who should sing to the Sister Cecilia? The child meditated silently. Sister Cecilia, again mistress of herself, smilingly took Ernestine's hand and led her down the hall. ”

“ If she consents, I will find some nice little girl for you to play with. To-morrow you will not be so homesick."
May Iverson's sharp eyes saw the two as they walked down the long corridor that led to the garden. She smiled to herself as she looked after them.
"I wondered how long it would take to bring those two together," she said to the class-mate who was with her; "the child of the greatest living contralto and the nun to whom music is the breath of life. I don't believe Sister Cecilia knows who the child is," she added, "for Ernestine came only last week. ”

“ May looked after her a little resentfully as she went down the hall. "She actually thinks," she murmured, "that she knows more about life than I do." The reflection cheered Miss Iverson, who sighed in happy contemplation of her vast experience during two summer vacations. ”