l sisters seemed to miss the
sound, and to look wistfully at the bare desks and unused benches of
their schoolroom. For they loved their pupils and their work; both
came, perhaps, as a welcome break in the monotony of their barren lives;
and they were sorry when the day came for their scholars to leave them
for a time. Still more did they grieve when the inevitable day of a
final departure arrived. They knew--some by hearsay, some by experience,
and some by instinct alone--that the going away from school into the
world was the beginning of a new life, full, very often, of danger and
temptation, in which the good sisters and their teaching were likely to
be forgotten, and it was a sorrow to them to be henceforth dissociated
from the thoughts and lives of those who had often been under their
guardianship and tuition for many years. Such a parting--probably a
final one--was now imminent, and not a few of the sisters were troubled
by the prospect, although it was against their rule to let any sign of
such grief appear.

It was not the hour of recreation, but the ordinary routine of the
establishment was for a little while suspended, partly because it was
holiday-time, and partly because an unusual event was coming to pass.
One of the parlor boarders, who had been with the sisters since her
childhood, first as a boarder and then as a guest, was about to leave
them. She was to be fetched away by her mother and her mother's father,
who was an English milord, of fabulous wealth and distinction, and,
although at present a heretic, exceedingly "well-disposed" towards the
Catholic church. It was not often that a gentleman set foot within the
precincts of the convent; and although he would not be allowed to
penetrate farther than the parlor, the very fact of his presence sent a
thrill of excitement through the house. An English milord, a heretic,
the grandfather of "cette chere Lisa," whom they were to lose so soon!
No wonder the most placid of the nuns, the most stolid of the
lay-sisters, tingled with excitement to the finger-tips!

The girl whose departure from the convent school was thus regretted was
known amongst her English friends as Lesley Brooke. French lips,
unaccustomed to a name like Lesley, had changed it into Lisa; but Lesley
loved her own name, which was a heritage in her family, and had been
handed down to her from her grandmother. She was always glad to hear it
from friendly English lips. She was nineteen now, and