dappled
with little puffs of rosy cloud, bulking in size and deepening in colour
to the westward, where their upper edges were pure gold. And the river
looked like a stream of liquid honey, upon which giant rose-leaves had
been scattered, and a breeze was stirring in the grasses and among the
leaves. The Sisters were busily repacking their baskets. Little Miss
Wiercke, and her lank-haired young organist, sat under a bush, gazing in
each other's eyes with the happy fatuity of lovers in the second stage,
while the young lady who had kept the registers at the Public Library was
teaching her Cornish mining-engineer to wash up cups and saucers in a tin
basin--a process which resulted in the entanglement of fingers of
different sexes, and made Sister Tobias pause over her task of wiping
crockery to shake her head and laugh.

Little Miss Wiercke was to lose her lank-haired organist a few days later,
the prevalent complaint of shrapnelitis carrying him off. And the girl who
screamed coquettishly as the mining-engineer amorously squeezed her wet
fingers under the soapsuds was shortly to be represented in the
Cornishman's memory by another white cross in the Cemetery, a trunk full
of pathetic feminine fripperies, and a wedding-ring that had been worn
barely two months. But they did not know this, and they were happy. We
should never love or laugh if we knew.

Two other people had passed along the path that ran by the margin of the
sand and reed-patches, and were lost to sight. Lady Hannah glanced towards
the Mother-Superior, who was being gracious to Captain Bingo and the
Chaplain, and hoped Biddy would not miss the owner of the little Greek
head and the enchanting willowy figure quite yet.

Nuns were frightfully scrupulous and gimlet-eyed where their charges were
concerned. And certainly, if young people never got away together without
_qu'il ne vous en deplaise!_ there would be fewer engagements. And Biddy
must know that it was a Heaven-sent chance for the girl.

The Foltlebarres had sat too long on thorns to grumble at Beau's marrying
a girl without a _dot_, who was not only lovely enough to set Society
screaming over her, but modest and a lady. Up to the present his tendency
had been to exalt Beauty above Breed, and personal attractiveness above
moral immaculateness.

As in the most recent case of that taking but extremely terrible little
person with the toothy, photographic smile, Miss Lessie Lavigne of the
Jollity The