one about this new resolution of hers.
She felt how it would be opposed, how she would have to argue and combat
for permission; so she held her tongue. But next morning, an hour after
breakfast, she came to Grace, and in that tone of quiet authority she
always used to her father's housekeeper, requested the keys to the
sideboard.

Grace looked surprised, but yielded them at once; and Kate, going to the
large, carved, old-fashioned, walnut wood buffet, abstracted two or
three bottles of old port, a glass jar of jelly, and another of
tamarinds; stowed away these spoils in a large morocco reticule,
returned the keys to Grace, and, going upstairs, dressed herself in her
plainest dress, mantle, and hat, took her reticule, and set off. She
smiled at herself as she walked down the avenue--she, the elegant,
fastidious Kate Danton, attired in those sombre garments, carrying that
well-filled bag, and turning, all in a moment, a Sister of Mercy.

It was nearly noon when she returned, pale, and very tired, from her
long walk. Grace wondered more than ever, as she saw her dragging
herself slowly upstairs.

"Where can she have been?" she mused, "in that dress and with that bag,
and what on earth can she have wanted the keys of the sideboard for?"

Grace was enlightened some hours later, when Father Francis came up, and
informed the household that he had found Kate ministering to one of the
worst cases of fever in the village--a dying old woman.

"She was sitting by the bedside reading to her," said the priest; "and
she had given poor old Madame Lange what she has been longing for weeks
past, wine. I assure you I was confounded at the sight."

"But, good gracious!" cried the Captain, aghast, "she will take the
fever."

"I told her so--I expostulated with her on her rashness, but all in
vain. I told her to send them as much wine and jellies as she pleased,
but to keep out of these pestiferous cottages. She only looked at me
with those big solemn eyes, and said:

"'Father, if I were a professed Sister of Charity, you would call my
mission Heaven-sent and glorious; because I am not, you tell me I am
foolish and rash. I don't think I am either; I have no fear of the
fever; I am young, and strong, and healthy, and do not think I will take
it. Even if I do, and if I die, I shall die doing God's work. Better
such a death as that than a long, miserable, worthless life.'"

"She is resolved, then?"

"You would say so if you saw her