railway ticket; and the night express bore her away on her long
journey westward.

It was on the fourth of July, her twenty-first birthday, that she
entered the reception room at the "Anchorage", and presented in
conjunction with Doctor Grantlin's letter, a copy of the newspaper
printed at X--, which contained an article descriptive of the discovery
of the picture on the glass door; and expressive of the profound
sympathy of the public for the prisoner so unjustly punished by
incarceration.

For twenty years a resident of the institution, over which she had
repeatedly presided, Sister Ruth was now a woman of fifty-five, whose
white hair shone beneath her cap border like a band of spun silver, and
whose yellowish, dim eyes seemed unnaturally large behind their
spectacles. Thin and wrinkled, her face was nobly redeemed by a
remarkably beautiful, patient mouth; and her angular, wiry figure, by
small feet and very slender hands, where the veins rose like blue cords
lacing ivory satin. Over the shoulders of her gray flannel dress was
worn the distinctive badge of her office, a white mull handkerchief
pleated surplice fashion into her girdle, whence hung by a silver chain
a set of tablets; and the folds of mull were fastened at her throat by
a silver anchor.

Having deliberately read letter and paper, she put the former in her
pocket, and returned the latter with a stately yet graceful inclination
of the head, that would have been creditable in Mdm. Recamier's salon.

"I have expected you for some weeks, an earlier letter from Doctor
Grantlin having prepared me for your arrival; but it appears you have
not been released from prison by the pardon he anticipated?"

"No, madam; the authorities who caused my arrest and imprisonment,
considered the discovery of the printed door a complete refutation of
the accusation against me, and ordered my release. I come here not as a
pardoned criminal, but as an unfortunate victim of circumstantial
evidence; acquitted of all suspicion by a circumstance even stranger
than those which seemed to condemn me. In the darkest days of my
desolation, Doctor Grantlin believed me innocent, honored me with his
confidence and friendship, soothed my mother's dying hour; and he will
rejoice to learn that acquittal anticipated the mockery of a pardon.
Only his generous encouragement emboldened me to hope for a temporary
shelter here."

"Then you have no desire to become a permanent resident?"

"At