When the song was finished, we started in on “Who Is Sylvia?” which we had learned to sing in parts. Halfway through, Sister Veronica, at a word from Sister Hildegarde, waved abruptly to us to stop.

Sister Hildegarde stepped forward. “I have a suspicion that all of the girls are not doing their best,” she said. “You know, Sister, that there are certain girls here who are only too glad to let the others do the work for them. If it were not for your work, and Maggie Harrington’s voice, I don’t know where the choir would be this year.”

Maggie Harrington was the star singer of the school. She led the choir in singing for Benediction every Sunday, and she was also head girl. She was eighteen years old, with wiry brown hair that she wore in a queue down her solid back, and a broad red face on which rimless spectacles rode and flashed in triumph. Sister Veronica smiled at Maggie, and at the other members of the choir, who were grouped around her. They were very important girls, although some of them were only twelve, and the rest of us looked at them enviously, because they were in everybody’s good graces and always knew the right thing to do.

“I am going to watch very closely this time,” Sister Hildegarde said. “I think I know which girls are shirking. I think you know, too, don’t you, Sister?”

Sister Veronica agreed that she was pretty sure which girls were holding back their voices, and added meaningfully that it was usually the girls who gave the most trouble, in and out of class, who did the least work. “I’ve never seen it to fail, Sister,” she said, staring us all down. “Laziness and troublemaking go hand in hand. A busy girl is a good girl. The Devil can always find work for idle hands.”

Sister Hildegarde nodded agreement. “Give them a note, Sister,” she said.

Sister Veronica gave us a very loud note on the piano, not taking her eyes from us. “ ‘The Spinning Wheel,’ ” she said.

This was one of my favorite songs. During the chorus, we were supposed to whir like spinning wheels, and I was whirring with every ounce of breath when, to my astonishment and dismay, I saw that Sister Hildegarde was beckoning me to come forward. My conscience was clear. I knew that I had been making a great deal of noise, and the thought went through my mind that perhaps the best girls were now going to be brought forward, to give an example to the rest of the school. I stood in the spot she indicated, facing the piano, and was immediately joined by three other girls who had been summoned from the ranks. We stood together, not singing, until the song was finished.

“Now we know who the culprits are,” Sister Hildegarde said.