The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-07-17

! always let me do the talking, so she said
| she would. That evening Mabel and l
talked about Sister Irmingarde till the
| Great Silence" fell You know what
the Great Silence is in a convent, l sup
pose. 1t begins at nine at night and lasts
till after mass the next morning, and no
Sister IS supposed to speak between those
| times. | like it, and | always have.
like to feel that hundreds of human
beings are within those great walls and
that every one is silent and speechless
That night, before l went to sleep,
lay thinking of Sister Irrningarde, and
made up my mind to be exactly like her
when | grew up Then | fell asleep and
dreamed that some doctor was trying to
put twinkle into my eyes, and that Sis
ter lrmingarde and George were snow
balling each other at the station.
l will now pass over several months of
time, though there are indeed many
things | could tell you. But l cannot
pass quietly over the conduct of Mabel
Blossom. Instead of giving me the priv
ileges friend, an artist, and student
of life should have, Mabel Blossom
tagged after me everywhere, because she
was afraid / would see more of Sister
than she did And on those all too in
frequent occasions when my literary
work drew us together-Sister Irmin-
garde and myself, | nean-and we were
engaged in conversation suggested by
our mutual interest in life and literature,
Mabel Blossom would stay right there
and interrupt and chat with Sister IT.
mingarde in her frivolous, girlish way.
Poor Mabel She is so crude, SO inn
maturel Still, as / strive to be frank
and to write of life exactly : it is, [
must add here that Sister 1rmingarde
was just as nice to her as she was to me,
and seemed to like her just as much
We had never said anything more to her
about what we felt We thought we
would let our actions speak, not words.
But finally the climax came, and now |
am coming right to the crisis in this
story.
One morning Mabel Blossom came
into the classroom simply beaning. She
has way of showing all her teeth when
she smiles-both rows; | used to like 1t,
but now / don't, SO much She smiled all
morning, and her eyes shone, and every
now and then she looked at me IN very
mysterious way and made signs that she
had something to tell me. AS soon as we
got out she did tell me, too, and those
my first long draught out of the bitter
cup of jealousy Mabel said Sister r.
rningarde had stopped her as she was
passing through the hall, and told her
she was much pleased and encouraged by
the Improvement in MabePs manner and
her lessons since the holidays, and that
she had always had faith in Mabel and
believed she had material in her for a
fine. noble woman. And she said the
other Sisters had noticed Mabers inn
provernent, too, and she wanted to en-
courage Mabel by telling her that her
efforts were appreciated. Well, 1 will
not make this sad story any sadder than
it is by describing how I felt as my
Young friend thus told me of her JOY.
| congratulated her, but my throat felt
queer and my voice sounded as if it
belonged to some one else. Then Mabel
went off tumming to herself, and I stag
gered to my room and hid my anguish |
from the world.
That afternoon we had a lecture, and
Mabel Blossom took seat in the front
row. where Sister Irmingarde could see
her all the time. Sister Irningarde was
there with her class. And Mabel kept
her head thrown back and her eyes lit