t me help you to pick up your pictures." Miss Dingle did not
answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. "Won't
you let me help you to pick up your pictures?"

"Yes," she said, "you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very
quick."

"But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?"

Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her,
Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.

"Oh," she said, looking at Evelyn shyly--it was a sort of child-like
curiosity, "I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these
pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about."

"Who is about?"

"I'm afraid he might hurt me."

"But who would hurt you?"

"Well," she said cautiously, "perhaps he'd be afraid to come near me
to-day," and she glanced at her frock. "But I'm sure he's about. Did
you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?"

"No," Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said,
"I'm sure there's no one there."

"Ah, he knows it would be useless." She glanced again at her frock. "You
see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away."

"But who has gone away?"

"Oh, the devil is always about."

"But you don't think he would hurt you?"

Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether
Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But
whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a
moment, and Miss Dingle said--"But the devil is always trying to hurt
us. That is what he comes for."

"So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures--to keep him
away?"

Miss Dingle nodded.

"What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice
you wear it."

"I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the
Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear
sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he
is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue."

Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle
told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she
would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a
nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.

"Now," she said, "I must really go and say some prayers in the church."

Evelyn offered to accompany her, but s