25
“Happy? Oh, yes! As happy as most people.”
That answer was disheartening; the very point of their story was that they should be much happier than other people.
When I was older I used to walk around the Driscoll place alone very often, especially on spring days, after school, and watch the nuns pacing so mildly and measuredly among the blossoming trees where Myra used to give garden-parties and have the band to play for her. I thought of the place as being under a spell, like the Sleeping Beauty’s palace; it had been in a trance, or lain in its flowers like a beautiful corpse, ever since that winter night when Love went out of the gates and gave the dare to Fate. Since then, chanting and devotions and discipline, and the tinkle of little bells that seemed forever calling the Sisters in to prayers.
I knew that this was not literally true; old John Driscoll had lived on there for many years after the flight of his niece. I myself could re-
