“Yes, Evelyn, I should like to use you sometimes as a secretary... if you are going to remain with us.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mother.”

“Well, sit down.  I have sent for you because I want to have a little talk with you on this subject.”  And she spoke of Evelyn’s postulancy; of how long it had lasted.  It seemed to the Prioress that it would be better, supposing Evelyn did not intend to remain with them, for her to live with them as an oblate, occupying the guest-chamber.

“Your health doesn’t permit much religious instruction; but one of these days you will realise better than you do now what our life is, and what its objects are.”

So did the Prioress talk, getting nearer the point towards which she was making, without, however, pressing Evelyn to answer any direct question, leading her towards an involuntary decision.

“But, dear Mother, I am safe here, you know.”

“And yet you fear, my dear child, you have no vocation?”

“Well, it seems extraordinary that I—­”

“More extraordinary things have happened in the world than that; besides, there is much time for you to decide.  No one proposes that you should be admitted to the Order to-morrow; such a thing, you know, is impossible, but the white veil is a great help.  Evelyn, dear, this question has been running in my mind some time back—­is it well for you to remain a postulant any longer?  The white veil, again I say, is such a help.”

“A help for what, dear Mother?”

“Well, it will tell you if you have a vocation; at the end of the year you will know much better than you know now.”

“I a nun!” Evelyn repeated.

“In a year you will be better able to decide.  Extraordinary things have happened.”

“But it would be extraordinary,” Evelyn said, speaking to herself rather than to the nun.

“I have spoken to Mother Hilda and Mother Philippa on the subject, and they are agreed that if you are to remain in the convent it would be better for you to take the white veil.”

“Or do they think that it would be better for me to leave the convent?”

“It would be impossible for us to think such a thing, my dear child.”

“But what I would wish to understand, dear Mother, is this—­have I to decide either to leave the convent or to take the white veil?”

“Oh, no; but you have been so long a postulant.”

“But when I went to Rome my postulancy—­”

“Even so, you have been a postulant for over a year; and, should you discover that you have no vocation, the fact of having been a novice, of having worn the white veil, will be a protection to you ever afterwards, should you return to the world.”

“You think so, dear Mother?”

And the Prioress read in Evelyn’s face that she had touched the right note.

“Yes, to have a name, for instance—­not only the veil, but the name.  I have been thinking of a name for you—­what do you think of ’Teresa’?”