feeling in it which it was not necessary now that he should see. She
told him that her own avowal should lift from him all the weight of
wrong-doing; she had first gone astray. "We were always like brother and
sister, Rast; I see it now. It is far better as it is."

A few days later Pere Michaux wrote again, and inclosed a picture of
Tita. The elder sister gazed at it curiously. This was not Tita; and yet
those were her eyes, and that the old well-remembered mutinous
expression still lurking about the little mouth. Puzzled, she took it
to mademoiselle. "It is my little sister," she said. "Do you think it
pretty?"

Jeanne-Armande put on her spectacles, and held it frowningly at
different distances from her eyes.

"It is odd," she said at last. "Ye--es, it is pretty too. But, for a
child's face, remarkable."

"She is not a child."

"Not a child?"

"No; she is married," replied Anne, smiling.

Mademoiselle pursed up her lips, and examined the picture with one eye
closed. "After all," she said, "I can believe it. The _eyes_ are
mature."

The little bride was represented standing; she leaned against a pillar
nonchalantly, and outlined on a light background, the extreme smallness
of her figure was clearly shown. Her eyes were half veiled by their
large drooping lids and long lashes; her little oval face looked small,
like that of a child. Her dress was long, and swept over the floor with
the richness of silk: evidently Pere Michaux had not stinted the lavish
little hands when they made their first purchase of a full-grown woman's
attire. For the priest had taken upon himself this outlay; the "money
for close," of which Tita had written, was provided from his purse. He
wrote to Anne that as he was partly responsible for the wedding, he was
also responsible for the trousseau; and he returned the money which with
great difficulty the elder sister had sent.

"She must be very small," said mademoiselle, musingly, as they still
studied the picture.

"She is; she has the most slender little face I ever saw."

[Illustration: "MISS LOIS SIGHED DEEPLY."]

Tita's head was thrown back as she leaned against the pillar; there was
a half-smile on her delicate lips; her thick hair was still braided
childishly in two long braids which hung over her shoulders and down on
the silken skirt behind; in her small ears were odd long hoops of gold,
which Pere Michaux had given her, selecting them himself on account of
their adaptatio