onvent
wall.

The consecration was doubtless a blessing to her, for she was happy in
her new home, and found a sphere of usefulness that employed her hours
to the best advantage. Moreover, she grew to be a sensible nun, and
ceased to look for supernatural demonstrations in the neighborhood of
the chapel. She grew hearty, and was cheerful, and sang at her work,
and prayed with more honesty and less sentiment. Her life was as
placid as a river whose waters are untroubled by tempestuous winds,
and upon her bosom light cares, like passing barges, left but a
momentary wake.

As Maud mused in her cell one day, through the narrow barred window
she caught a glimpse of the burnished sea bearing upon its waves a
weather-beaten barque inward bound. There was danger that her mind
might wander off, piloted by her dreamy and worshipful eyes. She
arose, drew across the opening a leathern curtain, and returned with
undisturbed complacence to her prayers.

IV.

Jason, having among his freights the veritable golden fleece, still
coursed the seas, but beheld with rapture the fair outlines of the
Dreamland coast traced in the far blue and mysterious horizon. The
wind freshened: hour after hour they were nearing port, and as the
whole familiar picture grew more and more distinct, Jason saw the
convent towers looming like a great shadow, and afterward the sunny
slope whereon the rose-garden grew.

The manner of his quitting the barque before she was fairly within
communication with the shore was hardly worthy of his calling. I
forbear to dwell upon this exhibition of human weakness, for almost
any one in Jason's shoes would have been equally regardless of the
regulations, and in consequence proportionally unseamanlike.

With soiled garments and unshorn beard Jason ran to the hill. No one
of the idlers in port recognized the returned wanderer, and he assured
himself of the fact before venturing upon his visit to the dove-cot
where Maud dwelt, for he wished to gaze upon her from afar, and in
silence to worship her, unknown and unregarded. When he reached the
wicket, breathless with haste and excitement, he at once beheld the
ruin of his hopes--the thistles in the paths, the roses overgrown and
choked with weeds, the sad and general decay. Jason smote his breast
in a paroxysm of despair, while the doves fluttered out from the porch
of the cottage in amazement at the approach of a human foot to their
domains.

What could it me