owed with great
sorrow, then retain the money and the pictures I leave behind; and
believe that I died, as I have lived, not unworthy of all thy kindness
and true charity this dear sacred 'Anchorage' has shown to me. Sister
Elena is impatient; I hear her walking up and down the floor. While I
am absent, Sister Katrina, and especially Sister Anice, can take my
place in the Art School; and all my orders were finished last week,
except the mirror for Mrs. St. Clair. She wished it framed in scarlet
bignonias, and as the painting is more than half done, Sister Anice can
easily complete it. I will not detain you longer. Good-night, Sister
Ruth."

No sleep visited Beryl, and as she lay at two o'clock, watching the
shimmer of the moonlight reflected from the tossing waves upon the
panes of her wide window, where the tangled mesh of quivering rays
coiled, uncoiled, glided hither and yon like golden serpents, she heard
the click of the key, and the turning of the knob in a door, which
opened from the alcove into an adjoining room. That apartment was
reserved as a guest chamber; had been unoccupied for months; and
puzzled by the sound, Beryl sat up in her bed and listened. The blue
folds of the drapery hanging over the alcove arch, were drawn aside,
and Sister Ruth, wrapped in a trailing dressing-gown, held up a small
lamp and peered cautiously around.

"What is the matter, Sister?"

"Did I frighten you? I came this way rather than knock at the other
door, because Sister Frances is on watch to-night; and though she is a
dear good soul, she is afflicted with an undue share of the feminine
frailty, curiosity, and I prefer that no one should canvass my
unseasonable visit to you. Do not get up."

She put the brass lamp on a chair, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Our conversation has disquieted me, and I cannot sleep. Long ago, for
my own sake, I made a rule by which to govern my judgment of my fellow
beings; and it amounts to this: where I cannot be sure of evil in
others, I give them the benefit of the doubt, and sincerely endeavor to
think the best. I have watched you very closely. There is much that I
cannot understand; much that it appears strange you should hesitate to
explain; yet in these years I have had no cause to question your
truthfulness, and that is the basis of all human worth. We profess to
live here as one family, as sisters, holding each other in love,
charity and trust; yet in searching myself to-night,