ady he has one
daughter a nun, and his honor among French-Canadians will increase. I
have lived in St. Jerome all my life, and have neither daughter nor
son in the Church; they pity me. It was only yesterday we received the
letter from Quebec telling us of the honor that had come to my brother
through his daughter taking the veil. None of our neighbors were more
passionately attached to their children than we; yet death passed by
their doors, came to ours, and took them all. Continued disappointment
has made me weary of life. The sound of the church bells, which I have
heard so often sing honor for others, drives me to outbursts of
shameful anger. At times I think I shall go mad. As for the Church, I
have nearly lost all faith in it."

As he ceased, his wife rose, kissed his cheek and said, with a little
break in her voice, "We have suffered much, Hormisdas; would to the
Virgin we had not been so sorely afflicted."

"Such affliction is nothing but cruelty," he went on, scornfully. "It
was cruel when death took all our little ones in childhood. But it was
still more cruel, when we had grown old and were striving to be
content and kiss the rod, for the Virgin to give us another daughter;
to let us keep her till she had grown into womanhood; till we had
given her an education which would have fitted her to be the
superioress of a convent, and then strike her with a fatal illness
just as she was about to take the veil, and once more ruthlessly crush
out all our hopes."

"So long as Adele lives there is hope," said his wife, trying to be
brave.

"Doctor Prenoveau says she will die," he answered fiercely.

"She was resting easier when I came down to you. I cannot get the idea
out of my mind, that if we got Doctor Chalmers from Montreal, he would
cure her. They say, although he is young, he is very clever. As for
Doctor Prenoveau, you know people say he is too old to practise now."

"When Doctor Prenoveau said the others would die, they died," he
replied, looking at her as though he feared she would no longer argue
with him.

With a hopeful ring in her voice the brave mother said, "That is true,
but this time he may be mistaken; Doctor Chalmers would know."

"If we only dared hope," he said under his breath.

"Doctor Chalmers would know," she repeated eagerly.

"Send for him," he replied, turning his face away.

The sun had hardly sunk behind the Laurentian range of mountains,
which for hundreds of miles towers a