d half rebelling in her mind against
the working of Providence. The sweet song of Mere St. Borgia fell like
soft rain upon her hard thoughts, and instilled a spirit of resignation
amid the darkness, as she repeated the words, "Ave, Joseph!" She fought
bitterly in her soul against giving up her two lambs, as she called
them, to the cold, scant life of the cloister, while her judgment saw
but too plainly that naught else seemed left to their crushed and broken
spirits. But she neither suggested their withdrawal from the Convent,
nor encouraged them to remain.

In her secret thought, the Lady de Tilly regarded the cloister as
a blessed refuge for the broken-hearted, a rest for the weary and
overladen with earthly troubles, a living grave, which such may covet
and not sin; but the young, the joyous, the beautiful, and all capable
of making the world fairer and better, she would inexorably shut out.
Christ calls not these from the earthly paradise; but the afflicted, the
disappointed, the despairing, they who have fallen helplessly down in
the journey of life, and are of no further use in this world, these he
calls by their names and comforts them. But for those rare souls who are
too cold for aught but spiritual joys, he reserves a peculiar though not
his choicest benediction.

The Lady de Tilly pondered these thoughts over and over, in the fulness
of pity for her children. She would not leave the Convent at the closing
of the gates for the night, but remained the honored guest of Mere
Migeon, who ordered a chamber to be prepared for her in a style that
was luxurious compared with the scantily furnished rooms allotted to the
nuns.

Amelie prevailed, after much entreaty, upon Mere Esther, to intercede
with the Superior for permission to pass the night with Heloise in the
cell that had once been occupied by her pious kinswoman, Mere Madelaine.

"It is a great thing to ask," replied Mere Esther as she returned with
her desired boon, "and a greater still to be obtained! But Mere Migeon
is in a benevolent mood tonight; for the sake of no one else would she
have granted a dispensation of the rules of the house."

That night Lady de Tilly held a long and serious conference with Mere
Migeon and Mere Esther, upon the event which had driven her nieces to
the cloister, promising that if, at the end of a month, they persisted
in their resolutions, she would consent to their assumption of the white
veil; and upon the completion of