garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I had
confessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in when
one of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vine
leaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with a
fever."

"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not be
thou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest."

"Oh no," said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to converse
with the priests except in the chapel." And choking back an amused
little laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up into
her own room.

"Saints! what an ankle the girl has, to be sure!" thought Jeanne, as she
watched Victorine's shapely legs slowly vanishing up the stair. "What
has filled her head so full of that upstart Willan, I wonder!"

A thought struck Jeanne; the only wonder was it had never struck her
before. In her sudden excitement she sprung from her chair, and began to
walk rapidly up and down the floor. She pressed her hand to her
forehead; she tore open the handkerchief which was crossed on her bosom;
her eyes flashed; her cheeks grew red; she breathed quicker.

"The girl's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and twice as clever
as I ever was," she thought.

She sat down in her chair again. The idea which had occurred to her was
over-whelming. She spoke aloud and was unconscious of it.

"Ah, but that would be a triumph!" she said. "Who knows? who knows?"

"Victorine!" she called; "Victorine!"

"Yes, aunt," replied Victorine.

"There's plenty of honey left in the flowers to keep pears sweet after
the bees are dead," said Jeanne, mischievously, and went downstairs
chuckling over her new secret thought. "I'll never let the child know
I've thought of such a thing," she mused, as she took her accustomed
seat in the bar. "I'll bide my time. Strange things have happened, and
may happen again."

"What a queer speech of Aunt Jeanne's!" thought Victorine at her
casement window. "What a fool I was to have said anything about Father
Anselmo! Poor fellow! I wonder why he doesn't run away from the
monastery!"

II.

The south wind's secret, when it blows,
Oh, what man knows?
How did it turn the rose's bud
Into a rose?
What went before, no garden shows;
Only the rose!

What hour the bitter north wind blows,
The south wind knows.
Why did it turn the rose's bud