ay from his distant Troodos to help and comfort
her.

"Daughter," he said, "for thy brave wrestling I absolve thee from thy
vow. Christ and the Holy Mother are merciful. They ask no more than man
may do. If thou hast not the strength----"

"Father, without my work I have naught to live for. I have not the
strength to leave it."

"Then God help thee! and the prayers of all the pilgrims to the
Troodista help thee! And of all who have tasted of thy bounty; and of
all who have known thy care!"

"Unless, my Father," she interrupted painfully, "there should be one who
might better hold this trust, to whom I may yield it? If Carlotta----"

"Is she not like her Mother, the Paleologue?" the Lampadisti answered
angrily. "Hath she not plotted murder and treachery to compass her ends?
Aye--even a fratricide--because forsooth of the crime of the grace that
her brother possessed? Is there a record of good deeds, that the people
should wish her back?--Did _she_ strive to uphold the laws, or to know
them?--To have her people taught and comforted?"--his eyes blazed.

"Thou dost verily comfort me, my Father."

"For that I am sent. The Holy Relic on the altar of the Troodista seemed
to point me hither, with every Sacred Thorn. I could pray no prayers but
for thee; I could hearken to no other tales of woe. My feet turned ever
thither without my will: and thus I knew that thou hadst need of me!"

But once when he came, and she knew not that it was the last time, she
said:

"I have somewhat to ask of thee, my Father."

"Say on."

"That thou wilt receive me into the Holy Sisterhood of St. Francis--as a
lay sister; that if I find the world more weary than I can bear, I may
be sure of a retreat which thou my faithful friend and spiritual Father
will have prepared for me. So that the act of my admission may be known
only to thee and me and the directors of the Chapter of St. Francis, and
to the Holy Sisterhood, of which I shall be one--yet living in the
world, so long as my duty shall call me."

"Thou hast deserved it by thy constancy," he said. "And may the Holy
Madonna be gracious to thee: and our blessed St. Francis sing to thy
sorrowing soul sweet measures of content, by the voices of 'his
brothers, the birds of the air.'"

It was evening, and the Queen had bidden him to her summer terrace over
the gardens, where in the luxuriant shrubberies below them the birds
were vying with each other in the loud-voiced evening orisons fo