up Chartres Street to Canal, and once there, mingle in the
throng that filled the wide thoroughfare. Beyond this first plan she
could think no further.

Penniless, garbed, and shaven though she would be, other difficulties
never presented themselves to her. She would rely on the mercies of
the world to help her escape from this torturing life of inertia. It
seemed easy now that the first step of decision had been taken.

The Saturday night before the final day had come, and she lay
feverishly nervous in her narrow little bed, wondering with wide-eyed
fear at the morrow. Pale-eyed Sister Dominica and Sister Francesca
were whispering together in the dark silence, and Sister Josepha's ears
pricked up as she heard her name.

"She is not well, poor child," said Francesca. "I fear the life is too
confining."

"It is best for her," was the reply. "You know, sister, how hard it
would be for her in the world, with no name but Camille, no friends,
and her beauty; and then--"

Sister Josepha heard no more, for her heart beating tumultuously in her
bosom drowned the rest. Like the rush of the bitter salt tide over a
drowning man clinging to a spar, came the complete submerging of her
hopes of another life. No name but Camille, that was true; no
nationality, for she could never tell from whom or whence she came; no
friends, and a beauty that not even an ungainly bonnet and shaven head
could hide. In a flash she realised the deception of the life she
would lead, and the cruel self-torture of wonder at her own identity.
Already, as if in anticipation of the world's questionings, she was
asking herself, "Who am I? What am I?"

The next morning the sisters du Sacre Coeur filed into the Cathedral at
High Mass, and bent devout knees at the general confession. "Confiteor
Deo omnipotenti," murmured the priest; and tremblingly one little
sister followed the words, "Je confesse a Dieu, tout puissant--que j'ai
beaucoup peche par pensees--c'est ma faute--c'est ma faute--c'est ma
tres grande faute."

The organ pealed forth as mass ended, the throng slowly filed out, and
the sisters paced through the courtway back into the brown convent
walls. One paused at the entrance, and gazed with swift longing eyes
in the direction of narrow, squalid Chartres Street, then, with a
gulping sob, followed the rest, and vanished behind the heavy door.

THE PRALINE WOMAN

The praline woman sits by the side of the Archbishop's quaint litt