ed a little girl, only six years old,
to take her dusky face out of the long flowing veil of the nun, and
show how quickly she could read a sentence that Sister Winifred wrote
on the blackboard. Then others were called on, and gave examples of
their accomplishments in easy arithmetic and spelling. The children
must have been very much bored with themselves that stormy Sunday, for
they entered into the examination with a quite unnatural zest.

Two of the elder girls recited, and some specimens of penmanship and
composition were shown. The delicate complexion of the little nun
flushed to a pretty wild-rose pink as these pupils of hers won the
Colonel's old fashioned compliments.

"And they are taught most particularly of all," she hastened to say,
"cooking, housekeeping, and sewing."

Whereupon specimens of needlework were brought out and cast like pearls
before the swine's eyes of the ignorant men. But they were impressed in
their benighted way, and said so.

"And we teach them laundry-work." She led the way, with the children
trooping after, to the washhouse. "No, run back. You'll take cold. Run
back, and you shall sing for the strangers before they go."

She smiled them away--a happy-faced, clean little throng, striking
contrast to the neglected, filthy children seen in the native villages.
As they were going into the laundry, Father Richmond came out of the
house, and stopped to point out to the Colonel a snow-covered
enclosure--"the Sisters' garden"--and he told how marvellously, in the
brief summer, some of the hardier vegetables flourished there.

"They spring up like magic at the edge of the snow-drifts, and they do
not rest from their growing all night. If the time is short, they have
twice as much sunlight as with you. They drink it in the whole summer
night as well as all the day. And over here is the Fathers' garden."
Talking still, he led the way towards a larger enclosure on the other
side of the Cross.

Sister Winifred paused a moment, and then, as they did not turn back,
and the Boy stood waiting, she took him into the drying-room and into
the ironing-room, and then returned to the betubbed apartment first
invaded. There was only one blot on the fairness of that model
laundry--a heap of torn and dirty canvas in the middle of the floor.

The Boy vaguely thought it looked familiar, before the Sister, blushing
faintly, said: "We hope you won't go before we have time to repair it."

"Why, it's our ol