agreeable to people. You must
remember that, even should Sylvia leave us, your chances may be no
better than they are now."

"Madam," I said, leaning toward her, and speaking with great
earnestness, "I will take all possible chances! What I ask and implore
of you is, that if you should ever be able to do the least little thing
which would give me the opportunity to plead my own suit before Sylvia,
you would do it. I can give her position and fortune. I think I am
suited to her, and if love can make me better suited, I have love
enough. Now tell me, will you not do this thing? If you have the
opportunity, and see no reason against it, will you not help me?"

"This is a hard position for me," she said, after a pause, "and all I
can promise you is this: I love Sylvia, and I am going to do whatever I
think will be of the greatest advantage to her."

"Then," I asserted with continued earnestness, "it shall be my labor to
prove that to love the man who loves her as I do will be her greatest
good! If I do that, will you be on my side?"

She smiled, looked at me a few moments, and then answered, "Yes."

"Your hand upon it!" I cried, leaning still farther forward. She laughed
at the enthusiastic warmth of my manner, and gave me her hand.

"It is a promise!" I exclaimed, and was about to raise her fingers to my
lips when she quickly drew them away.

"I declare," she said, rising as she spoke, "I did not suppose that you
would forget that I am the Mother Superior of the House of Martha."

"Excuse me," I replied, "but you are not that; with your own mouth you
have assured me that you are an Interpolation, and there is nothing in a
social or moral law which forbids a suitable expression of gratitude to
an Interpolation."

"Sir," said she, "I think I have seen quite as much as is necessary of
the view which you asked me here to look upon."

XXVI.

MOTHER ANASTASIA.

In the half hour during which I remained alone upon the bluff, awaiting
the return of Walkirk and the fishing party, I thought as much of the
lady with whom I had been talking as the lady of whom I had been
talking.

"How is it possible," I asked myself, "that this gentlewoman, warm with
her rich blooded beauty, alive with ripe youth, born to delight the soul
of man and fire his heart, should content herself to be a head nurse in
a hospital; to wander in an unsightly disguise among dismal sick-beds;
to direct the management of measles-refuges; to