ou cannot
receive her to-day, she will come to-morrow."

"She shall be welcome," said the abbess; without, however, much of the
spirit of welcome in her tone.

"So this is our calamity!" said Euphrosyne, laughing.

"There is calamity at hand, assuredly," sighed sister Benoite. "Nay,
nay, my daughter. This is superstition," said the abbess.

"Whatever it be, reverend mother, do we not all, does not every one
quake when Madame Oge comes abroad?"

"It is but seldom that she does," said the abbess, "and it is our part
to make her welcome."

"But seldom, indeed, reverend mother. When all goes well--when the
crops are fine, and the island all at peace, no one hears of Madame Oge.
She keeps within her coffee-groves--"

"Mourning her sons," interposed the abbess. "But," continued the nun,
"when any disaster is about to happen, we have notice of it by Madame
Oge coming abroad. She came to this very house the first day of the
meeting of the deputies, in that terrible August of ninety-one. She
came a day or two before the rising against Hedouville. She came the
night before the great hurricane of ninety-seven--"

"That was an accident," said the abbess, smiling. "Then you think it is
not by accident that she always comes out before misfortunes happen?"
asked Euphrosyne, trembling as she spoke.

"By no means, my dear. It is easily explained. Madame Oge looks upon
her sons as martyrs in the cause of the mulattoes. When all goes well,
as all has done, under L'Ouverture's rule, with only a few occasional
troubles--fewer and slighter than might have been expected during such a
change in society as we have witnessed--when all goes well, Madame Oge
feels that her sons are forgotten; and, as my daughter Benoite says, she
mourns them alone in the shades of her coffee-groves. She seems,
however, to have means of information which persons less interested have
not: and when she has reason to believe that troubles will ensue, she
hopes that the names of her sons will once more be a watchword, for the
humiliation of both blacks and whites; and she comes forth with her
hungry maternal heart, and her quick maternal ear, to catch the first
echo of the names which are for ever mingled with her prayers."

"Can she mingle those names with her prayers, and yet not forgive?"

"My child, is it not so with us all? Do we not pray for our enemies,
and ask to be forgiven as we forgive, and come out from our closets with
ears open t