the subject be changed, and was able to assure the company that the
missive on Geoffry's desk was no bulky manuscript, but a neat thin
letter under one two-cent stamp.

"Accept'!" they cried, "that beautiful true story of 'The 'Oly Crozz'
is accept'! Mesdemoiselles they have strug the oil!"

Mme. Castanado had a further conviction:

"'Tis the name of it done that! They coul'n' rif-use that name!--and
even notwithstanding that those publisher' they are maybe Protestant!"

The good nights were very happy. The last were said five squares away,
at the hotel, to which the De l'Isles brought her back afoot. "And
to-morrow evening, four o'clock," madame said, "I'll come and we'll go
make li'l' visite at those Chapdelaine'."

Mrs. Chester had but just removed her hat when again the telephone;
from the hotel office--"Your son is here. Yes, shall we send him up?"

XLVII

With hands under their gray sleeves two white-bonneted _religieuses_
turned into Bourbon Street and rang the Chapdelaines' street bell.

Mlle. Yvonne flutteringly let them into the garden, Mlle. Corinne into
the house. The conversation was in English, for, though Sister
Constance was French, Sister St. Anne, young, fair, and the chief
speaker, was Irish. They came from Sister Superior Veronique, they
said, to see further about mesdemoiselles entering, eh----

Smilingly mesdemoiselles fluttered more than ever. "Ah, yes, yes!
Well, you know, sinze we talk ab-out that with the archbishop we've
talk' ab-out it with our niece al-_so_, and we think she's got to get
marrie' befo' we can do that, biccause to live al-lone that way she's
too young. But we 'ave the 'ope she's goin' to marry, and then----!"

"Have you made a will?"

"Will! Ah, we di'n' never think of that! Tha'z a marvellouz we di'n'
never think of that--when we are the two-third' owner' of that lovely
proprity there! And we think tha'z always improving in cozt, that
place, biccause so antique an' so pittoresque. And if Aline she
marrie' and we, we join that asylum doubtlezz Aline she'll be rij-oice'
to combine with us to leave that lovely proprity ad the lazt to the
church! Biccause, you know, to take that to heaven with us, tha'z
impossible, and the church tha'z the nearez' we can come." Odd as the
moment seemed for them, tears rolled down their smiling faces.

"But"--they dried their eyes--"there's another thing also bisside'. We
are, all three, the authorezz' of a stor