softly, as she sometimes did, now that she knew him so much
better.

There was something warm and caressing in her laughter, short and low as
it was, that made Dalrymple look at those full white hands of hers and
wonder whether they might not be warm and caressing too.

"Will you sing a little louder than the rest next Sunday afternoon,
Sister Maria?" he asked. "I will be in the church."

"That would be a great sin," she answered, but not very gravely.

"Why?"

"Because I should have to be thinking about you instead of about the
holy service. Do you not know that? But nothing is sinful according to
you Protestants, I suppose. At all events, come to the church."

"Do you think we are all devils, Sister Maria?" asked Dalrymple, with a
smile.

"More or less." She laughed again. "They say in the town that you have a
compact with the devil."

"Do you hear what is said in the town?"

"Sometimes. The gardener brings the gossip and tells it to the cook. Or
Sora Nanna tells it to me when she brings the linen. There are a
thousand ways. The people think we know nothing because they never see
us. But we hear all that goes on."

Dalrymple said nothing in answer for some time. Then he spoke suddenly
and rather hoarsely.

"Shall I never see you, Sister Maria?" he asked.

"Me? But you see me every day--"

"Yes,--but your face, without the veil."

Maria Addolorata shook her head.

"It is against all rules," she answered.

"Is it not against all rules that we should sit here and make
conversation every day for half an hour?"

"Yes--I suppose it is. But you are here as a doctor to take care of my
aunt," she added quickly. "That makes it right. You are not a man. You
are a doctor."

"Oh,--I understand." Dalrymple laughed a little. "Then I am never to see
your beautiful face?"

"How do you know it is beautiful, since you have never seen it?"

"From your beautiful hands," answered the young man, promptly.

"Oh!" Maria Addolorata glanced at her hands and then, with a movement
which might have been quicker, concealed them in her sleeves.

"It is a sin to hide what God has made beautiful," said Dalrymple.

"If I have anything about me that is beautiful, it is for God's glory
that I hide it," answered Maria, with real gravity this time.

Dalrymple understood that he had gone a little too far, though he did
not exactly regret it, for the next words she spoke showed him that she
was not really offended. Nevertheless