heart's content.

When the gust of grief had spent itself, Salome lifted her head and dried
her eyes, murmuring:

"Yes, I loved him! I loved him! but it is past! it is past! I must forget
him, henceforth and forever!"

"Yes, daughter, you must forget him, for to remember him would be a
grievous sin. And you must forgive him, though he meditated against you
the deepest wrong," said the abbess, solemnly.

"I will try to forgive the wrong-doer and forget the wrong, but oh!
mother, mother, it will be very hard to overlive it! Oh, I hope, I hope,
if it be Heaven's will, that I shall not have to live very long," said
Salome, with a heavy sigh.

"That is the way I felt in the first bitterness of my sorrow: but the
feeling passed away in duty-doing. And now, although I know that in the
next life every need and aspiration of the soul will be fulfilled, yet I
find such peace and joy here, that I am willing, yes and glad, to live in
this world as long as my Lord has any work for me to do in his vineyard."

"Tell me what I ought to do, and I will try to do it," said Salome, with
another deep sigh; for her very breathing was sighing now.

"You know that this is Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas,"
said the abbess.

"Is it? I did not know, I have taken no note of time."

"And to-morrow is Sunday, the last Sunday before Christmas."

"Yes, of course."

"Daughter, you have not been to chapel once since your arrival among us."

"Ah, no! I came from the infirmary here, and I have not left this room to
go anywhere since!" sighed Salome.

"That is not because you are not able to do so, but because you are not
willing. You have allowed yourself to sink into a sinful and dangerous
lethargy of mind and body in which you have brooded morbidly over your
afflictions. You must do so no longer. You must rouse yourself from this
moment. You must go with us to-night to vespers. To-morrow morning you
will attend high mass. A fellow-countryman of yours, Father F----,
an Oratorian priest from Norwood, England, will preach. He will do you
good. Since the days of St. John, the beloved disciple, no wiser, more
loving, or more eloquent soul ever spoke to sinners," said the abbess.

"But--coming from England!--If he should recognize me!" exclaimed Salome.

"Why, do you know him?"

"Oh, no, not at all; but then there are sometimes people with whom we
have no sort of acquaintance, who yet know us by sight from seeing us in
public