had but one answer, 'If Roberta were only with us,'" Louis said, in a tone of laughing petulance; and Roberta wondered if all her life was to be like this. And even while she wondered relief came to her in a way she least expected.

That same night on which they returned a letter came to her from the mother-superior of the convent, asking her to come at once. Sister Agatha was sick, dying they feared, and had entreated to be allowed to see Roberta again.

"It is very selfish in me; I know it is so," cried Fay, clinging to her, "but I can not endure the idea of your going away now, when we have just come home."

"I must go; Sister Agatha loved me," was all that Roberta said.

She made the few preparations needful for the journey with feverish haste. In her heart of hearts she had determined never to come back, never. The year had not completed one cycle of seasons since she had left those walls with such eager longing. Her life there had been so colorless and repressed; she thirsted for the life without; and now, as if a life-time had been compressed in those few months, she found herself longing as eagerly for the calm again-the dead monotony of a life which never changes.

The journey was not a long one; as in a trance Roberta passed the hours which intervened. Sister Monica met her, looking just the same, though it seemed to Roberta that everyone must have changed as she herself had.

"How is Sister Agatha? Can I see her now?" were her eager questions.

"The same. She is waiting for you. She felt sure that you would come. You will find her much changed, though we never thought her case dangerous until lately."

"First let me go and see if she is awake, and tell her that you have come. She is so feeble, you see."

"There is no need," said Roberta, moving her gently to one side. "If she is asleep I will sit quietly by the bed until she awakes."

She pushed the door softly open and as softly closed it again. Her first glance showed her Sister Agatha lying upon the low couch-the same Sister Agatha, but how greatly changed, etherealized as it were! Roberta went softly up to the bed and knelt down, stifling the great sob which threatened to choke her. An imploring look crept into Sister Agatha's deep eyes, a look which Roberta answered by the faintest whisper.

"Not that name, never that," murmured Sister Agatha, brokenly; then, pointing to a glass, "Give me some of that. It gives me strength, and I must speak." Roberta rose and brought it to her. After a few moments, Sister Agatha spoke in a stronger voice: "I knew that you would come. I felt sure that you would. I have longed so to see you, my very other self. Let me look into your face again. It is there, too. I could not save you from it. I felt that you were suffering, and still was powerless to help you."

"Dear Sister," entreated Roberta, “it is nothing. I only suffer for myself. Were I better and greater, nearer the ideal which you ever held before me, I could not suffer so."

"You must tell me all. I alone can help you. I have lived for that."

The story took not long to tell, though Roberta did not spare herself, only passed over as lightly as possible the feeling of loneliness and isolation which pos sessed her.

"And you never knew?"

"Never. As often as I had looked upon the portrait, I had never identified A vague resemblance, a strange likeness to some one, I knew not whom,

puzzled me; but on that morning, even while I was looking, a strange spell came over the picture, and I saw not the face of the dead Alice, for the living one of Sister Agatha shadowed it, and I knew, as if I had known it always, that you were one. It was that which saved me, for I sought it in an agony which would have betrayed me to all, and I left it in a calm which was never wholly broken afterward."

When Roberta paused in her recital, Sister Agatha spoke quickly: "I should never have sent for you, Roberta, but I felt your pain through that strange sympathy which binds us together, and I knew that I alone could save you from yourself. You are no longer a child, and must know, must realize, something of the struggle which conquered me. Yet you have not entered life upon the same footing. To me self-control and renunciation were as words unknown, and when I awoke to the knowledge that I loved Lawrence Haight, I could have blotted out the sun and left the world in darkness in my passion, dismay, and anger. For the first time in my life something had come to me that I could not alter. Much as my brother loved me, deeply as my father idolized me, I knew that they would turn in horror from me did they even suspect the truth. There was no one in whom I could confide. I loved Ray even while I deceived him. I see now that he would have helped me. He was the only one who could, but I did not trust him, and the end came. I said that I would throw to the wind all the chains which bound my past with theirs, and for one short week I did. Then some chance-nay, I mistake, for nothing happens by chanceleft a paper in my way. It was open, and the first paragraph which met my eye was the account of my father's death, with a few scathing words on my shameless conduct. It was a short paragraph, but every word burned like fire in my

brain. I saw myself as I was-saw what I had done, abhorred myself. I was mad, I think. I never saw Lawrence Haight again. When I awoke, I was in the convent here. They called me Sister Agatha. I had been here five years, they said. One day a little child

was brought here. There were already a great many children here, but I had never noticed them. This child had eyes of wondrous melancholy, and a smile more sweet than bright. O! Roberta, I saw that I could live againthat I should live again in you. I begged the mother-superior to let me teach. I could do it easily, for music was an open book to me. How I loved you, Roberta! How I have ever loved you! I could not trust myself to embrace you, to give you even one of the caresses that you longed for, lest my idolatry should be discovered and you should be taken away from me. Always at confessional the one sin which I had to confess and do penance for was that of idolatry, and yet I suffered. You were a part of my bitter punishment. I felt all the hardness of my brother in his coldness to you. I realized that this enforced privation of all the joys and pleasures of life would only make your longing for them more eager, more uncontrolled, when the opportunity for satisfying them came, and I labored and strove to prepare you for that struggle."

"And all in vain; I am so utterly unworthy that you should have cared for me," said Roberta. "It has seemed to me that nothing but death could be welcome to me, since life had nothing for me to do except to suffer."

"And there was One who took upon Himself life even for that. O! Roberta, my work was only half completed. To live for others, to do good for others, that is all there is worthy of life. And to do that best you must not shut yourself away from the world, with its breathing hopes and sorrows. That was the

first light which came to me in the black night of my despair. I knew that I must bear the consequences of my own deeds. By my own act I had narrowed the field of my activity. I had taken the broken worthless fragments of my life and thought, to dedicate them to a God who had placed me in a world filled with my fellow-creatures needing care and love-a God who demanded the best powers of heart and brain. O, it was maddening! Then you came, teaching me that I had still something to live for."

"But it is so hard to know what to do, what it is right for one to do," sighed Roberta.

"Be sure that when you have learned to distrust your own desires, the path will become plain to you. When we strive to grasp happiness, to search for a path which shall be soft and gentle to our feet, we are sure to be farthest from the right.”

While they talked the evening shadows deepened into night. The dull November sky was covered with duller clouds, and the wind beat restlessly against the panes. The bare desolate room was more gloomy in the darkness, and the breathless silence was broken only by the low murmur of their voices. Now and then long pauses came between the words, and more than once Roberta in affright bent nearer to see if the life fluttering on the pale lips had ceased to stir. The bells for vespers had rung out their soft melancholy summons, and the steps of the sisters and children had ceased to echo through the carpetless halls. Roberta thought with a pang, half of sorrow, half of joy, that never more would Sister Agatha's voice sound in the vesper hymn, but a celestial choir would be the gainer. Later, one of the sisters came in, but seeing Sister Agatha lying as if asleep, she had gone out again, promising to come in later and share the watch with

Roberta. For a long time after that there was silence; then Sister Agatha moved restlessly.

"Is there anything you want?" Roberta asked.

"No, I have said all."

The answer came in little more than a breath. A sudden thought moved Roberta. She bent lower.

"And Mr. Llorente, dear Sister-after all these years, have you no word, no message, to send to him?”

She searched the pale face with painful eagerness, and then repeated the question. The colorless lips moved. Roberta bent nearer.

"O, I can not understand!" she cried in a distressed voice.

Sister Agatha repeated her words with painful effort. "Ray!"

That was all that Roberta could understand. She listened in agony of suspense-listened, but the silence was never broken more by Sister Agatha.

Hours after, Roberta, through the haze of unwept tears, sat gazing upon a face too beautiful for life, too beautiful for death-the face of one who had put on immortal life and beauty.

Again Mossland bowed beneath its summer weight of roses. Wilder, more luxuriant, the air seemed fainting under the sweet burden of their bloom, and sky and earth were lost in the richness of their perfect lives. The radiant glory of sunset still lingered in the west, and the maple-leaves were all aflame. Before one of the open windows Fay was lying, dreamily watching the moving shadows through her half-closed eyes. On a low stool by her side Roberta was sitting. Their white dresses, of thinnest texture, mingled together inseparably like a fleecy cloud. Upon Fay's arms and neck and in the golden setting of her hair the bluest sapphires rested. Roberta wore no ornament,