is never wise to
approach the Kentucky mountaineer's home nearer than his front gate
without an invitation--she walked boldly to the door. It was open, and
she peered into the darkness. No fire had been lighted for supper. She
kneeled on the sill and felt around with her hand. First she touched an
overturned chair, then a piece of broken lamp chimney, then a man's
foot; but the man was not standing, the toes were up. Her heart turned
to ice, yet the need of help was too imperative to turn away from any
hope, so again she reached for the clumsy boot and fearfully moved it to
see if he might be merely asleep, or drunk. The leg was stiff, and, with
another shudder, she turned and fled.

By early morning she had dragged herself down from the mountains and
staggered through the convent gate. Here, at least, in one of those
modest retreats, which generations ago slipped into the remoter valleys
of young Kentucky for their voluntary exile, she would find help! Many
an afternoon when the world was blithe she had been wont to stop and
listen to the mellow peal of its bell floating across her mountains on
an easterly evening breeze, and in all of this torturing night of
wandering she imagined it was calling. The good sisters gathered her in
as though she were that more treasured lamb than the ninety and nine,
nor would they hearken to her leaving. The sheriff soon came to their
call, and in his honest, gruff voice promised reverently to perform the
last services at her cabin. Then she began to find peace.

But after three years here, when she had absorbed all that their patient
teaching could impart, her mind grew disturbed with a new restlessness.
It may have been that life was becoming monotonous; or that pictures of
the great world, of which she had only had a glimpse, whetted her
curiosity to go forth and see; or, more than these, it may have been her
innate love for those mountains, and those mountain people--after all,
her people. For she had come to learn that the blow she suffered had
been struck through simple ignorance, and from this knowledge gradually
developed a resolution, inspiring her with courage to approach the
Mother Superior for permission to go back into the world and teach. She
reminded the good woman that she had taken no vows, and horrified her by
admitting that she had accepted no creed, save that of help to fellow
man. After an hour of tearful, never-to-be-forgotten argument, the
Mother gave signs of yi