nce and prayer!" exclaimed Maria, sadly. "That is it--a slow death,
but a sure one!"

"I am more than sixty years old," replied the abbess. "I have done
penance and prayed prayers all my life, and you see--I am well. I am
stout."

"For charity's sake, do not say so!" cried Maria, making the sign of the
horns with her fingers, to ward off the evil eye. "You will certainly
fall ill."

"Our lives are of God. It is our own eyes that are evil. You must not
make horns with your fingers. It is a heathen superstition, as I have
often told you. But many of you do it. Maria, I wish to speak to you
seriously."

"Speak, mother," answered the young nun, the strong habit of submission
returning instantly with the other's grave tone.

"These thoughts of yours are very wicked. We are placed in the world,
and we must continue to live in it, as long as God wills that we should.
When God is pleased to deliver us, He will take us in good time. You and
I and the sisters should be thankful that during our brief stay on earth
this sanctuary has fallen to our lot, and this possibility of a holy
life. We must take every advantage of it, thanking Heaven if our stay be
long enough for us to repent of our sins and obtain indulgence for our
venial shortcomings. It is wicked to desire to shorten our lives. It is
wicked to desire anything which is not the will of God. We are here to
live, to watch and to pray--not to complain and to rebel."

The abbess was stout, as she herself admitted, and between her sudden
surprise at her niece's wholly unorthodox, not to say blasphemous,
suggestion of suicide as a means of grace, and her own attempt at
eloquence, she grew rapidly warm, in spite of the comparatively cool
draft which was passing out from the interior of the building. She
caught the end of her loose over-sleeve and fanned herself slowly when
she had finished speaking.

But Maria Addolorata did not consider that she was answered. There in
the cell of a Carmelite convent, in the heart of a young girl who had
perhaps never heard of Shakespeare and who certainly knew nothing of
Hamlet, the question of all questions found itself, and she found for it
such speech as she could command. It broke out passionately and
impatiently.

"What are we? And why are we what we are? Yes, mother--I know that you
are good, and that all you say is true. But it is not all. There is all
the world beyond it. To live, or not to live--but you know that this is
not