n he came to see her early in
the morning on a matter of business; for he managed the finances of
the Convent hospital and was also its representative in any questions
in which the institution, as distinguished from the order had secular
dealings with the world.

The prelate and the Mother met as usual in the cloistered garden, and
when Convent affairs had been disposed of, they continued their walk
in silence for a few moments.

'I want your unprejudiced opinion about the future of one of the
Sisters,' said the Mother Superior at last, in her usual tone.

'I will try to give it,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca.

'Sister Giovanna wishes to go to Rangoon with the other three.'

The churchman betrayed no surprise, and answered without hesitation:

'You know what I always say in such cases, when I am consulted.'

'Yes. I have given her that advice--to wait a month to try to put the
idea out of her mind, to make sure that it is not a passing impulse.'

'You cannot do more,' said Monsignor Saracinesca, 'nor can I.'

The Mother Superior turned up her white face and looked at him so
steadily that he gazed at her in surprise.

'It ought to be stopped,' she said, with sudden energy. 'It may be
wrong to call it suicide and to interfere on that ground, but there is
another, and a good one. I am responsible for the hospital here, for
the nursing in it, and for the Sisters who are sent out to private
cases. Year after year, one, two, and sometimes three of my best young
nurses go away to these leper asylums in Rangoon and other places in
the Far East. It is not the stupid ones that go, the dull, devoted
creatures who could do that one thing well, because it is perfectly
mechanical and a mere question of prophylaxis, precaution, and
routine--and charity. Those that go always seem to be the best, the
very nurses who are invaluable in all sorts of difficult cases from an
operation to a typhoid fever; the most experienced, the cleverest, the
most gifted! How can I be expected to keep up our standard if this
goes on year after year? It is outrageous! And the worst of it is that
the "vocation" is catching! The clever ones catch it because they are
the most sensitively organised, but not the good, simple, humdrum
little women who would be far better at nursing lepers than at a case
of appendicitis--and better in heaven than in a leper asylum, for that
matter!'

Monsignor Saracinesca listened in silence to this energetic tirade;