"How good of you!"

"You will succeed, Evelyn; and as Mother Philippa says, it is very
good of you."

The Prioress spoke with hesitation, and Evelyn guessed that the nuns
were thinking of their present necessities.

"I can let you have a hundred pounds easily, and I could let you have
more if it were not--" The pause was sufficiently dramatic to cause
the nuns to press her to go on speaking, saying that they must know
they were not taking money which she needed for herself. "I wasn't
thinking of myself, but of my poor people; they're so dependent upon
me, and I am so dependent upon them, even more than they are upon
me, for without them there would be no interest in my life, and
nothing for me to do except to sit in my drawing-room and look at the
wall paper and play the piano."

"We couldn't think of taking money which belongs to others. We shall
put our confidence in God. No, Evelyn, pray don't say any more."

But Evelyn insisted, saying she would manage in such a way that her
poor people should lack nothing. "Of course they lack a great deal,
but what I mean is, they'll lack nothing they've been in the habit
of receiving from me," and, speaking of their unfailing patience in
adversity, she said: "and their lives are always adversity."

"Your poor people are your occupations since you left the stage?"

"You think me frivolous, or at least changeable, Reverend Mother?"