ostles would not make her break it, and then she will be doomed to
misery, and her fate and your brother's are both sealed."

She then went on to ask when the Magister was to return home, and as I
told her he was expected on the morrow great trouble came upon her.

It was past midnight or ever I left her, and as it fell I slept but ill
and late, insomuch that I was compelled to make good haste, and as it
fell that I went to the window I saw the snow whirling in the wind, and
behold, in the shed, a great wood-sleigh was being made ready, doubtless
for some sick man to be carried to the convent.

I found my aunt in the hall, whither she scarce ever was carried down
before noon-day; and instead of her every-day garb--a loose
morning-gown---she was apparelled in strange and shapeless raiment, so
muffled in kerchiefs and cloaks as to seem no whit like any living woman,
much less herself, insomuch that her small thin person was like nothing
else than a huge, shapeless, many-coated onion. Her little face peeped
out of the veils and kerchiefs that wrapped her head, like a half-moon
out of thick clouds; but her bright eyes shone kindly on me as she cried:
"Come, haste to your breakfast, lie-a-bed! I thought to find you fitted
and ready, and you are keeping the men waiting as though it were an
every-day matter that we should travel together."

"Aye, aye! She is bent on the journey," my uncle said with a groan, as he
cast a loving glance at his frail wife and raised his folded hands to
Heaven. "Well, chaplain, miracles happen even in our days!" And his
Reverence, silent as he was, this time had an answer ready, saying with
hearty feeling: "The loving heart of a brave woman has at all times been
able to work miracles."

"Amen," said my uncle, pressing his lips on the top of his wife's muffled
head.

Howbeit I remembered our talk yesternight, and the sleigh I had seen
being harnessed; indeed, the look alone which the unwonted traveller cast
on me was enough to tell me what my sickly aunt purposed to do for the
sake of Ann. Then something came upon me, I know not what; with a passion
all unlike that of yesterdayeve, I fell on my knees and kissed her as a
child whose mother has made it a Christmas gift of what it most loves and
wishes to have, while my lips were pressed to her eyes, brow, and cheeks,
wherever the wrappings covered them not, and she cried out:

"Leave me, leave me, crazy child! You are choking me. What great matt