her alive, intending she should fulfil her mission years hence, by
bringing him out of the snares of temptation, back into the fold of
Christ's redeemed. Five years of penal servitude to ransom his soul;
was the price exorbitant?

One dull, wintry afternoon as she pressed close to the window, to catch
the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be the chapter
in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee and the
Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her; a
remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and debased, her
suffering fellow prisoners.

Was there no work to be done for the dear Master, in that moral
lazaretto--the long rows of cells down stairs, where some had been
consigned for 'ninety-nine years'? Hitherto, she had shrunk from
contact, as from leprous contagion; meeting the Penitentiary inmates
only in the chapel where, since her restoration to health, she went
regularly to sing and play on the organ, when the chaplain held
service. The world had cruelly misjudged her; was she any more lenient
to those who might be equally innocent?

Next day she went humbly, yet shyly, down to the common work-room, and
took her place among the publicans, hoping that the soul of some
outcast might be won to repentance. Now and then messages of sympathy
reached her from the outside world, in the form of flowers, books,
magazines; and two of the jurors who convicted her, sent from time to
time generous contributions of dainty articles that materially promoted
her comfort; while a third, whose dead child had clung to her Christmas
card, eased his regretful pangs by the gift of a box containing paper,
canvas, crayons, brushes, paints, and all requisite appliances for
artistic work.

Sister Serena had gone on a labor of love, to a distant State; and
faithful Dyce, hopelessly crippled by a fall from the mule which she
was forcing across the bridge leading to the State dungeon, had been
permanently consigned to the wide rocking chair, beside her cabin
hearth at "Elm Bluff".

It was a bleak night in January, and intensely cold, when Mrs.
Singleton wrapped a shawl about her head, and ran along the dark
corridor to the cell, where Beryl was walking up and down to keep
herself warm. Only the moonlight illumined it, as the rays fell on the
bare floor, making a broad band of silver beneath the window.

"I forgot to tell you, that something very dreadful happened at the
'Lilacs' l