n. Are you aware that my ward is a Catholic?"

"My wife will be of my mother's faith. I would not have her of any other."

The Mother gave Beauvayse her own hand then, that was marred by many deeds
of charity, but still beautiful.

Those two, linked together for a moment in their mutual love of her, made
for Lynette a picture never to be forgotten. Then Beauvayse said, in the
boyish tone that made the man irresistible:

"You have made me awfully happy!"

"Make her happy," the Mother answered him, with a tremble in her rich,
melancholy tones, "and I ask no more."

Her own heart was bleeding, but she drew her black draperies over the
wound with a resolute hand. Was not here a Heaven-sent answer to all her
prayers for her beloved? she asked herself, as she looked at the girl.
Eyes that beamed so, cheeks that burned with as divine a rose, had looked
back at Lady Biddy Bawne out of her toilet-glass, upon the night of that
Ascot Cup-Day, when Richard had asked her to be his wife. But Richard's
eyes had never worn the look of Beauvayse's. Richard's hand had never so
trembled, Richard's face had never glowed like this. Surely here was Love,
she told herself, as they went back to the place of trodden grass where
the tea-making had been.

The Sisters, basket and trestle-laden, were already in the act of
departure. The black circle of the dead fire marked where the giant kettle
had sung its hospitable song. Little Miss Wiercke and her long-locked
organist, the young lady from the Free Library and her mining-engineer,
had strolled away townwards, whispering, and arm-in-arm; the Mayor's wife
was laying the dust with tears of joy as she trudged back to the Women's
Laager beside a husband who pushed a perambulator containing a small boy,
who had waked up hungry and wanted supper; the Colonel and Captain Bingo
Wrynche had been summoned back to Staff Headquarters, and a pensive little
black-eyed lady in tailor-made alpaca and a big grey hat, who was sitting
on a tree-stump knocking red ants out of her white umbrella, as those
three figures moved out of the shadows of the trees, jumped up and hurried
to meet them, prattling:

"I couldn't go without saying a word.... You have been so beset with
people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear
Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever
preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without
my coming back in m