inclined to set store on the Jesuit's pious intentions. The
spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument
on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the
book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her
eyes and voice, she said--

"Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you've forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I
am going away to-morrow."

"Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during
the winter, if you are in London. I don't remember that you said that
you are going abroad to sing."

"Mother Mary Hilda, I'm thinking of leaving the stage."

The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that
she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very
existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling
a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just
as Mary Hilda's hand closed the books that the door opened and the
Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new
conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her
books, and having answered the Reverend Mother's questions in her own
blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn
thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.

The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and
by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some
special intention.

"Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are
not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you
would stay with us till Monday."

"It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy;
indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the
world after having seen what your life is here."

"We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free
to remain as long as you please."

"Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live
here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were
to rain?"

"It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather."

The nun's old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still
a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep
into the enigma of Evelyn's soul that she lost her presence of mind; her
breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this r