ad been
snapped by her aunt's death; if she lives, think the nuns--if
indeed they find time to think of her at all--she is a burthen
on our hands; if she dies, well then, one more coffin and
another grave. This is perhaps the ebb-tide of Madelon's
importance in the world; never before has been, never again
will be, we may trust, her existence of so little moment to
any human being--that existence which, meanwhile, in spite of
all such indifference, in perfect unconsciousness of it
indeed, is beginning to assert itself again. For though the
Superior had died amidst lamentations, and the places of Soeurs
Eulalie and Marguerite will know them no more, our little
Madelon, over whom there are none to lament or rejoice, will
live.

One afternoon she awoke, as from a long sleep. The low sun was
shining into the cell, lighting up the wooden crucifix on the
white-washed wall; Soeur Lucie, in her strait coif and long
black veil, was sitting by the bedside reading her book of
hours; through the window could be seen a strip of blue sky
crossed by some budding tree in the convent garden, little
birds were beginning to chirp and twitter amongst the
branches. The spring had come in these last days whilst
Madelon had been lying there, and in the midst of the glad
resurrection of all nature, she too was stirring and awakening
to consciousness, and a new life.

CHAPTER VIII.

Madelon overhears a Conversation.

Amidst the springing flowers, the twitter of pairing birds,
and the bursting of green leaves through the brown, downy
husks, in the bounteous April weather, Madelon began to
recover rapidly. She was nursed with kindness and care, if not
exactly with tenderness, by Soeur Lucie; but tenderness our
little black sheep had long since learnt not to expect in the
convent, and she hardly missed it now. It was in the first
days of her convalescence that she heard of the death of her
aunt Therese, through some chance remark of one of the Sisters
who came into her cell. Had it not been for this, they would
have kept it from her longer; but the news scarcely affected
her at all. Her aunt had shown her no affection in these last
two years that they had lived under the same roof, and, on the
few occasions on which Madelon had come in contact with her,
the pale, cold face, and severe manner of the nun had inspired
her niece with a dread, which only lacked opportunity to
become a more active dislike. She heard the news then with
apa