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Show Page 25 It was Ann's first train ride and she sat primly in her seat, her lips pressed firmly together, looking neither right nor left. In Salt Lake City she was met by the sisters and driven to the convent, an ivy-covered brick building set against smooth lawns and surrounded by tall trees. Four hundred girls attended the school. The girl from cow country had not realized there could be "so many girls in just one world." It was a long jump from ranch life with its poker games and roundups to life in the cloistered convent school, but Herbert Bassett's worries were unfounded. Ann rose to the occasion beautifully. She was thrilled by it all: the ringing of the bells, the delicious food served in a lovely dining hall and eaten to the strains of soft music, the immaculate school grounds, the gentle care received when ill. She was even proud of the fact that her new blue uniform showed no traces of cow manure. Life at the school was "a maze of make-believe" and Ann felt like Alice in Wonderland. Years later she wrote with fondness of the time she spent at St. Mary's: My convent experiences were a delightful interlude during which I went sailing around on clouds of beauty and ease. Not until twenty years later did I realize I was being disciplined and educated for the finer things of life by those masterful sisters . . . Had I been |