arb of old sister Methtune and, supporting its bulky skirt,
demurely walked into the Mother Superior's sanctified chamber. What that
good woman thought as she raised herself up from her couch is not
recorded even in her conscience, but Jane was sent in haste to replace
the nun's attire. While passing a glass door in a dimly lit hall she
saw, for the first time in her life, her own face. For five, ten minutes
she continued to look back into this heretofore undiscovered and sinful
reflector, sometimes laughing, sometimes making grimaces. Then for
another ten minutes she simply stared. Sister Methune was late getting
to her devotions that morning.

But this incident had occurred eight years ago, when she was scarcely
thirteen. Until then she had literally grown up like a weed--or a wild
rose--a half-savage little creature of the Cumberlands, loving
passionately, hating blindly, doing all things with the full intensity
of a vivid, whole-souled temperament. She lived in a cabin many miles
from the more civilized country where the convent lay, under the
questionable protection of a noted feudist father, who was usually
making moonshine when not stalking his enemies. Her cherished glimpses
of civilization came during one month each year--July--when she picked
especially fat and luscious blackberries in remote spots known only to
her, and sold them in the valley to Colonel John May, whose white
columned house might be seen on clear days from the convent tower.

One of her visits happened upon a day when the place was enlivened by
his daughter's approaching wedding. A distinguished house-party had
assembled, among whom a city-bred young fellow had been attracted by her
wild beauty. Safe from the eyes of his friends he followed her through
the woodland pasture, and talked to her; and it had seemed a very
natural thing. Mountain girls mature early, and she was a woman for all
her tender years; a twelve and a half year old woman, partly savage,
masquerading in the guise of a girl. He was dazzling to her and
pleasing. But suddenly he kissed her and, infuriated, she flung the
empty bucket in his face and fled. The gods may know where she learned
the difference between right and wrong.

In a passion of shame and bitter hatred, she hurled back at him every
oath her father, in his most prolific moments, had ever used. It was a
wondrous collection. Her only idea was to reach home and return with the
rifle, and so insistent was this tha