“O! what does it signify?” said Harriet, drawing her chair closer to that of Mrs. Pullen, “we can do very well without her. I don’t think she’s very nice, do you?”

“You must not speak of Miss Leyton like that to me, Miss Brandt,” remonstrated Margaret, gently, “because--she is a great friend of our family.”

She had been going to say, “Because she will be my sister-in-law before long,” but remembered Elinor’s request in time, and substituted the other sentence.

“I don’t think she’s very kind, though,” persisted the other.

“It is only her manner, Miss Brandt! She does not mean anything by it!”

“But you are so different,” said the girl as she crept still closer, “I could see it when you smiled at me at dinner. I knew I should like you at once. And I want you to like me too--so much! It has been the dream of my life to have some friends. That is why I would not stay in Jamaica. I don’t like the people there! I want friends--real friends!”

“But you must have had plenty of friends of your own age in the Convent.”

“That shows you don’t know anything about a convent! It’s the very last place where they will let you make a friend--they’re afraid lest you should tell each other too much! The convent I was in was an Ursuline order, and even the nuns were obliged to walk three and three, never two, together, lest they should have secrets between them. As for us girls, we were never left alone for a single minute! There was always a sister with us, even at night, walking up and down between the rows of beds, pretending to read her prayers, but with her eyes on us the whole time and her ears open to catch what we said. I suppose they were afraid we should talk about lovers. I think girls do talk about them when they can, more in convents than in other places, though they have never had any. It would be so dreadful to be like the poor nuns, and never have a lover to the end of one’s days, wouldn’t it?”“You would not fancy being a nun then, Miss Brandt!”
"_I_--Oh! dear no! I would rather be dead, twenty times over! But they didn’t like my coming out at all. They did try so hard to persuade me to remain with them for ever! One of them, Sister Féodore, told me I must never talk even with gentlemen, if I could avoid it--that they were all wicked and nothing they said was true, and if I trusted them, they would only laugh at me afterwards for my pains. But I don’t believe that, do you?”
“Certainly not!” replied Margaret warmly. “The sister who told you so 

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