and shaky, the handwriting of an old man. I remember the Greek "e"
was used in "appointment." A little thing that amused me at the time was
that Saunders seemed to keep the note pressed between the pages of his
Bible.

I had seen Adrian Borlsover once. Saunders, I learnt to know well. It
was by chance, however, and not by design, that I met a third person of
the story, Morton the butler. Saunders and I were walking in the
Zoological Gardens one Sunday afternoon, when he called my attention to
an old man who was standing before the door of the reptile house.

"Why, Morton!" he said, clapping him on the back. "How is the world
treating you?"

"Poorly, Mr. Saunders," said the old fellow, though his face lighted up
at the greeting. "The winters drag terribly nowadays. There don't seem
no summers or springs."

"You haven't found what you were looking for, I suppose?"

"No, sir, not yet; but I shall some day. I always told them that Mr.
Borlsover kept some queer animals."

"And what is he looking for?" I asked, when we had parted from him.

"A beast with five fingers," said Saunders. "This afternoon, since he
has been in the reptile house, I suppose it will be a reptile with a
hand. Next week it will be a monkey with practically no body. The poor
old chap is a born materialist.

"It's a queer coincidence, by the way, that you should have known Adrian
Borlsover and that you should have received a blessing at his hand. Has
it brought you any luck?"

"No," I answered slowly, as I looked back over a life of inconspicuous
failure, "I don't think it has. It was his right hand, you know."

[B] Reprinted by permission of Robt. M. McBride & Co.

VI

SISTER MADDELENA

RALPH ADAMS CRAM

Across the valley of the Oreto from Monreale, on the slopes of the
mountains just above the little village of Parco, lies the old convent
of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister terrace at Monreale you can see its
pale walls and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from the crowded
citron and mulberry orchards that flourish, rank and wild, no longer
cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the
mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged
olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from
Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun,
indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or
pauper village.

Partly because of this secl