that the conclusion is very dull, quite stupid, in fact, and not worth reading. There, you see, I can make a little sacrifice for a good end. Never mind missing Captain Smiter's call. I promise to bring him again to-morrow, if you'll do what I ask you now. Run up stairs and slip on your bonnet and mantle-wheedle Charlotte out of half a bottle of sherry--don't mind appearances-don't take Buttons to carry it for you-do your good works yourself, alone, unseen-then down the village to poor Betsy Trimmer's. She is dying slowly of cancer in the breast, and that in one little room, where the brats that have cost her this are for ever squalling. Do this, dear girl, and you will not repent it. If you have had little things to irritate you, household troubles, a new dress spoiled, mamma scolding, or what not, I promise you, you shall forget them all in the sight of that terrible wasting, lasting agony, and come back sad, sad indeed, but calmer and better than you went. Listen: Madeleine entered the one-roomed cottage. A fine child of two years old was sitting on the floor piping its note in any but a musical tone. On a little low bed was the sick mother. Oh, what a sight! The face, awhile ago so bright, and round, and happy, wasted. Wasted! oh, it is no word for it. The cheeks were gone entirely, and the skin of each seemed to meet its fellow within the mouth. The eyes were lost in their sunken sockets; the white lips scarcely hung together; the hard forehead, fleshless and shining white, was all wrinkled and terrible. One hand and arm were outside the bedclothes moving slowly to and fro, as if that soothed her suffering. This arm and hand were swollen frightfully, and made sad contrast to the face.

Propped up by pillows, the poor thing neither lay nor sat, but rather writhed on her wretched bed, groaning, and yet stifling her groans, and passing her hand for ever to her aching, gnawing breast. And thus she had lain for weeks, nay, months.

How are you to-day, poor Victorine ?'

'I am better, ma'mselle. The breast is easier; the day is coming, I think, ma'mselle.'

VOL. XXVII.

But she spoke very low. It seemed as if life were already going.

Madeleine had brought her a little wine and whey. She took it and was calmer.

"Good Sister Madeleine,' she gasps out, the day is coming, I know; but I fear to die; I who have sinned so much. I cannot tell what judgment waits me; perhaps this agony for ever.'

Then Madeleine draws out a little book, and reads:

And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping; and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the precious ointment. And Jesus said, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house; thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed them with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. My head thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.'

There was a little pause, and then the dying girl said in a low voice,'Kiss me, Sister Madeleine.' And the sinner kissed that other sinner. And she said: 'I, too, have sinned-sinned much-more than you, poor child.' And the other said: 'No, Sister Madeleine, it cannot be; you are too pure, too holy, ever to have sinned as Í have.' And she answered: 'Be comforted. He has forgiven my sins, and you call me pure. He can forgive yours too, and make you purer than me.'

And the sunbeams streamed in through the narrow lattice upon the deathbed, and lit up the face of the sick girl. And when Sister Madeleine looked round, she saw that she was dead.

2 z

The house stands back from the street, and towers above the low dwellings of the poor. Yet it is not proudthat house. Broad, substantial, lofty, high-roofed, as the head of a Norman peasant-woman; it has no look of wealth or comfort. Its many windows are dull and dusty; its huge swinging doors are of unpainted oak, rough, and grey, and unfriendly. It looks like a forgotten palace, where once many have lodged-many fared well on the fat of the land-many voices rung along the long narrow corridors-many light steps bounded up the stone stairs, and where now a few weak women, weak in form, but strong in faith, live their lives of simple charity.

Such is the old hospice of the sisters of St. Vincent de Paule, once a rich convent, now an empty shell, with only some five or six rooms furnished, and the moth and the wood-louse revelling in the rest.

Sister Madeleine-no longer Baroness de Ronville by right of birthenters its lofty gates with a thoughtful face. She is at peace, though, for she is glad that this poor girl is gone to her rest, and she has no doubt of the mercy of the All-Merciful.

She pushes open a low door which swings back behind her, and stands in a large scarce-furnished room. Its floor and walls are bare. There is a small deal table, and a high old-fashioned wardrobe, and some half-dozen wooden chairs, and this is the sisters' drawing-room.

Four women in the same dress as herself are sitting round the little table, working diligently with the needle, and talking cheerfully to one another.

The eldest of them, and their chief, is a woman of well-born mould. Though there is no difference of dress, you see that she is of gentle birth and better education by the way her white hands ply the needle. Yet what matter? She is serving God, and not the world, and in her profession there is no respect of persons. She is chief here only because she is the eldest, and has served the longest.

Sister Madeleine bows her head to the Superior, and sets down her basket.

And she, poor child ?' 'Is dead.'

The work falls from the hands of all the four women. They rise with one consent, and crossing themselves devoutly, they mutter together, 'O God, have mercy on her soul !'

Then they sit down again, and tears steal into the eyes of one of them, the youngest, a sweet-faced, calm-eyed girl, and the others are silent.

'She died, poor girl, unconfessed,' continues Sister Madeleine; 'without the sacrament.'

'Then it was too late, too sudden ?’ 'Yes, but I doubt not that her soul will find mercy. She has long confessed to me, and long repented.”

'Amen,' answered the four women. Then there is a silence, and Madeleine takes one of the two remaining chairs, and a piece of work-a child's frock-that is lying on the table, and plies her needle diligently.

'You have not breakfasted?' she asks, after a little while.

'No,' replies Sister Josephe, and I fear we have little to breakfast on this morning. Have you met Sister Marie ?'

'No. I sent the fish by her to those poor Dantins. They want it more than we, I think. Are you hungry, my sisters?'

t

No,' they answer one after another.

But you, Madeleine, have had a deal of walking. Sister Elizabeth, it would be better for us to breakfast, for we have a journey in prospect. Will you lay the table?'

Elizabeth, the youngest of the party, gets up cheerfully, and leaves the room. Presently she returns with a coarse cloth, a few coarse plates, and a yard of long bread under her arm. She lays the table neatly, and again goes out. When she comes back it is to bring a large bowl of bread-soup which has been cooking by itself in a huge kitchen, and she sets it in the middle of the little table. This is all the breakfast of the poor nuns.

The pious women bring their chairs to the table, and signing the cross, thank God in few words for this their daily bread, and eat heartily, and with that best of sauces--contentment. Poor things! if, indeed, we ought to pity those whose lives are given to so much goodness-they have tasted nothing since five o'clock yesterday, and it is now near eleven in the morning, and they have been up since six. 'And how goes the work?' asks Madeleine.

Very well,' answers the Superior. 'We have finished two chemises, and a frock, and could do more if we had the stuff. I must go down to those good English people, for though they are heretics, they are full of charity, and will give us more.'

'And I,' cries another merrily, have finished the pair of socks, and they look quite nice.'

And I,' says Sister Elizabeth, timidly, cannot get on half so fast as I wished with the old man's jacket; it is so hard and stiff.'

'And your little lady's hands are unaccustomed to such work,' says Madeleine, smiling at the young girl.

'Well, now,' says Sister Josephe, 'I must tell you what we have to do. Since you left this morning, a letter has come from the Superior at Mont St. Michel. She says that there is fever in the prison, and the sisters there are quite busy, for it appears that the fever began in the town, so she asks me if I can send one or two of you to help her. I have thought over it, and I think you, Madeleine, and you, Elizabeth, are the most fitted to go, and can most easily be spared.' The two women bowed their heads, and said they were happy to go whereever they were sent.

'So, Sister Marie has promised to borrow the little cart from Pierre, for it is too far for you to walk, and I shall take advantage of this opportunity to go over to Pontorson. We shall be a merry party, and you, Madeleine, shall drive the donkey, for you drive so well.'

Oh, it will be quite a treat,' cried little Elizabeth, brightening. So when their simple meal is over, Sister Marie comes in. She has breakfasted, she says, with one of the peasants, and she has taken the fish to the Dantins,

who were very glad to have it, and she has borrowed the cart which Pierre, that worthy Breton peasant, will bring round in a few minutes.

It is pleasant to see the three pious women handed gallantly in the rickety little donkey-cart by the honest Pierre, who entertains a profound reverence and deep affection for themfor have they not nursed him through a deadly sickness?

Sister Madeleine takes the reins with a light hand.

They have stowed two or three bottles of wine, which the charitable have given them, in the bottom of the cart, for the sick prisoners. They want none themselves, for their faith sustains their strength. And they have laid in a loaf or two of bread for themselves, that they may not be a charge to the nuns at Mont St. Michel, and then they drive briskly off, for even the donkey seems to feel the goodness of their errand.

The road is long and dusty, and their few simple topics of conversation are soon exhausted. It is then that Sister Madeleine, who has only been at the hospice about a month, being sent there from Rouen, begs the other two to tell her their histories. These three seem to have drawn more together than the rest; they are all of gentle birth and education. The others are worthy women from the lower classes, no less diligent and praiseworthy, but less interesting.

And these three seem to be at home with one another, for they have the same tastes and the same education.

My child,' answers the Superior to Madeleine's request, you know not what you ask. To recall me to the world, where my life was foolish and bitter, is bitterness itself. And yet, the sting is so long dead, the past seems so far distant, that I believe I could speak of it now with scarce a pang. Do you know, I have been in China, in Trincomalee, in Egypt even, and indeed all over the world, and yet I have never till to-day been asked to speak of my life in the world. And yet it is a strange one. You see I am an old woman now. My hair is turning grey, just here and there, for I was born in the last century, and I have been forty years in the Society.'

They drove on for some time in silence, and Madeleine was mentally comparing the life of sister Josephe with her own past, and forgot to touch up the sluggish donkey.

At last they arrived at Pontorson, and the good Superior left them. From there to Mont St. Michel is not far, and the two girls drove on pleasantly. And what is your story?' asked Madeleine of Sister Elizabeth. The other laughed and shook her head.

'Indeed I have little to tell, and that little would not interest you.'

'How can you know that, my little sister? On the contrary, everything that comes from a true heart interests me, and people who tell their own tales, when all is long since over, have little cause to qualify the truth.'

'But mine may be told in a few words. It is, I fancy, much the same story as so many of us could tell. I was a foolish and disobedient girl, and chose to love a man who had not a penny, and was, therefore, disapproved of by my parents. Two or three years passed, and then they pressed me to

marry another man, and because I would not, because I loved the first too well, I-I became a nun.'

Poor child,' said Madeleine, with sympathy, winding her arm round the girl's neck. My poor girl, I can indeed pity you. It was very hard.'

'No; it was my fault, my folly;' a little tear gathered into her eye. Then shaking her head playfully, she continued: 'And now you have heard us two, you must tell me your own history. I am sure it is interesting, Sister Madeleine.'

From Pontorson, there is a narrow hard road across the sands. Along this Madeleine drove the submissive donkey, and they reached the mount in safety. They put up the animal and cart at the house of an old woman, who was to take care of it till it was called for. At this cottage, too, half-way up the one hilly street, they engaged a single bed-room, for which the old lady, whose daughter the sisters had once nursed, asked but a very modest

sum.

The two good women then mounted to the prison gate and rang the great bell. A small trap was first opened, and a grizzly face peered through it for a moment; the next, the wicket was unbolted and they were let in. The porter, who knew their errand, directed them to a small, cold, illfurnished waiting-room, from which a door opened into the Governor's office.

Now, the Governor of the prisona quondam colonel of gendarmeriewas the ruler of the whole Mount, but such was his modest character, that

he preferred passing his days in the obscurity of a billiard-room, where he played caramboles with the captain of infantry, with the fierce moustache, whose company formed the garrison of the place, and expending his superfluous cash in betting on the twentyfive game, to interfering with his locum tenens, the deputy - governor. This deputy, risen from the ranks of jailerism, was a conscientious, systematic, but timid man, and was easily ruled by the principal jailer of the place, who was no other than the man with the red beard, who took such loving care of the Count Ludowsky.

The two sisters had not long been seated on the stone bench in the waiting-room, when this man came past. He looked carelessly at them at first, but suddenly started, and could not repress a little exclamation of surprise. Sister Elizabeth bent her eyes on the ground, but Sister Madeleine, with that independence for which she was celebrated, and which even the convent had not wiped away, looked at him calmly and with dignity.