gone to matins now, but will soon return
to give you her blessing. Ah! ah! Mademoiselle Salome! _Mais Helas!_
How ill she looks! Her hands are ice! Her head is fire! Her limbs are
withes! She is about to faint!" added Mother Veronique, aside to Sister
Josephine.

"She is just off a long and fatiguing journey. She is tired and hungry,
and needs rest and refreshment. That is all," answered the sister,
drawing the arm of the fainting girl through her own, and supporting her
as she led her from the portress' parlor.

"Ah! ah! is this so? The dear child! Take her in and rest and feed her,
my sisters! And when matins are over, bring her to our venerable mother,
whose soul will be filled with rapture to see her," twaddled the old nun,
until the party passed in from her sight.

Sister Josephine led Salome to her own cell, and made her loosen her
clothes and lie down on the cot-bed, while Sister Francoise and Sister
Felecitie went to the refectory and brought her a plate of biscuit and
a glass of wine and water.

Wine was not the proper drink for Salome, in her flushed and feverish
condition. But she was both faint and thirsty, and the wine, mixed with
water, seemed cool and refreshing, and she quaffed it eagerly.

But she refused the biscuits, declaring that she could not swallow. And
so she thanked her kind friends for their attention, and sank back on her
pillow and closed her eyes, as if she would go to sleep.

The sisters promised to bring the mother abbess to her bedside as soon as
the matins should be over. And so they left her to repose, and went
silently away to the chapel to take their accustomed places, and join,
even at the "eleventh hour," in the morning worship.

But did Salome sleep?

Ah! no. She lay upon that cot-bed with her hands covering her eyes, as if
to shut out all the earth. She might shut out all the visible creation,
but she could not exclude the haunting images that filled her mind. She
could not banish the forms and faces that floated before her inner
vision--the most venerable face of her dear, lost father, the noble face
of her once beloved--ah! still too well beloved Arondelle!

The music of the matin hymns softened by distance, floated into her room,
but failed to soothe her to repose.

At length the sweet sounds ceased.

And then--

The abbess entered the cell so softly that Salome, lying with closed eyes
on the cot, remained unconscious of the presence standing beside her,
looking