Mount St. Scholastica was a red brick house set back in a garden in the center of town. There was a filling station on one side of it and a firehouse on the other. It had a high black grille-work fence around it and narrow bricked walks between old trees and japonica bushes that were heavy with blooms. A big moonfaced nun came bustling to the door to let them in and embraced her mother and would have done the same to her but that she stuck out her hand and preserved a frigid frown, looking just past the sister’s shoes at the wainscoting. They had a tendency to kiss even homely children, but
...more
