y exclaimed, pressing her friend's
hands. "How happy you are, my darling! while we are--how does one say
it?--drowned in sin."

"Plunged," corrected her children's governess.

"Yes, plunged. Exactly so! You, on the other, are saving your soul, and
are quite absorbed in God."

Then she took Helene's hand and said, "You are tired; take my arm."

"No, I am not, I assure you."

"Still, do it, dear Sister."

It was one of the general's wife's principles on commencing the
conversation to speak with deference to her friend, though she was the
younger of the two.

"These matins, these vespers, these masses! ... It will indeed be well
with you up there." And she lifted her large green eyes to the ceiling.

This time also she did not omit the inevitable comedy, and taking
Helene's arm, she drew her to her boudoir, where the sound of several
voices was audible.

"Come, dear, I have absolute confidence in you."

The "lady bountiful," a friend of General Khlobestovsky, was already
seated in the boudoir. Her goggle eyes and projecting jaws well adapted
to frighten poor people, opened wide at Helene's arrival, and in a
high-pitched voice, imitating a famous actress, she exclaimed with a
sigh, "How happy I am! How delighted! Holy woman!" and then turning
towards a young girl very simply dressed who was also smiling at the
nun, said, "Ah, Sacha, how long have you been here?"

Sacha was a niece of the general, and had been taking a course of music
lessons at Petrograd. When she saw her, Helene's face lighted up.

"My course was over a fortnight ago, and I took advantage of it to come
home again."

"You would do much better," said the "benefactress," looking at Helene,
"to follow her example than to follow your course; I tell her so in your
presence, Sister, because I tell her so when you are not there to hear.
To think that at your age, with your beauty, you have been able to go
through such severe tests in order to overcome sin!"

"Why did you send for me?" Helene asked.

"Because, dear, we have decided to make a blue altar-cloth embroidered
with gold and silk for your convent. Without your advice we do not know
how to set about it; it is impossible for us to choose the design and
the colours."

The table was already covered with the velvet cloth in question which
reached down to the ground; on it were lying skeins of silk, fringes and
gold thread. As soon as Helene had taken her seat the ladies began an
earnest dis