present, I shall be grateful if allowed to enjoy the privilege of
hiding my sore heart for a while from the gaze of a world that has
cruelly wronged me. I want to rest where wicked men and women do not
pollute the air, where I can try to forget the horrors of convict life;
and the rest I need is not idleness, it is labor of some kind that will
so fully employ my hands and brain, that when I lie down at night my
sad, aching heart and wounded soul can find balm in sleep. Locked at
night into a dark cell has made existence for nearly eighteen months a
mere hideous vigil, broken by fitful nightmare. To see only pure faces,
to listen to sweet feminine voices that never knew the desecration of
blasphemy, to exchange the grim, fetid precincts of a penitentiary for
a holy haven such as this, is indeed a glimpse of paradise to a
tortured spirit."

"Have you special reasons for wishing to shun observation?"

The dim eyes probed like some dull blade that tears the tissues.

"Yes, madam, special cause to want to be forgotten by the public, who
have stared me at times almost to frenzy."

"You are an orphan, I am told; with no living relatives in America."

"I am an orphan; and think I have no relative in the United States."

"In the very peculiar circumstances that surround and isolate you, I
should imagine you would esteem it a great privilege to cast your lot
here, and become one of the permanently located Sisters of the
'Anchorage'. Ours is a noble and consecrated mission."

"Knowing literally nothing of your institution, except that it is a
hive of industrious good women, offering a home and honest work to
homeless and innocent unfortunates, I could not pledge myself to a life
which might not prove suitable on closer acquaintance. Take me in; give
me employment that will prevent me from being a tax upon your
hospitality and mercifully shelter me from pitiless curiosity and
gossip."

"Even were our sympathies not enlisted in your behalf, Doctor
Grantlin's request would insure your admission, at least for a season.
Where is your luggage?"

"I have only a trunk, for which I have retained the railway check,
until I ascertained your willingness to receive me."

"Give it to me."

She crossed the room and pressed the knob of a bell on the opposite
wall. Almost simultaneously a door opened, and to a stout, middle-aged
woman who appeared on the threshold, the matron gave instructions in an
under tone.

Returning to the str