en the vesper service was over, she took her tea with the nuns in their
refectory; and then returned to the play-room in the Infants' Asylum.

The nurses were engaged in giving the little ones their supper, and
putting them to bed.

Salome took up her own little Marie Perdue, to undress her.

As she divested the child of her little slip, something rolled out of its
bosom and dropped upon the floor.

One of the nurses picked it up and handed it to Salome.

It was a small, hard substance, wrapped in tissue paper.

Salome unrolled it and found a ring, set with a large solitaire diamond.
With a cry of surprise and pain, she recognized the jewel. It was her
late father's ring! While she gazed upon it in a trance of wonder, the
paper in which it had been wrapped, caught by a breeze from the open
window, fluttered under her eyes. She saw that there was writing on the
paper, and she took it up and read it.

"The ring must be sold for the benefit of the child and of the house that
has protected her. She must be educated to become a nun."

There was no signature to this paper.

Salome rolled it around the ring again, and put it in her bosom, then she
sent one of the nurses to call Sister Francoise.

When the old nun came into her presence, she inquired:

"Sister Francoise, you showed a lady and gentleman through the asylum,
this afternoon; they came into this room; they stopped and noticed little
Marie Perdue particularly. Did they ask any questions or make any remarks
concerning her? I have an especial reason for asking."

"Oh, yes, sister! they did ask many questions--when she came, how long
she had been, who took care of her, what was her name, and many more; and
as I answered them to the best of my knowledge, I could not help seeing
that they knew more about the child than I did," answered the nun,
nodding her head.

"Did the gentleman or lady give anything to the child?"

"Not that _I_ saw, which I thought unkind of them, considering all
the interest they showed in _words_; for, as I say of all the fine
ladies who come here and fondle the infants, what's the use of all the
fondling if they never put a sou out, or a stitch in?"

"That will do, sister; I only wanted to know," answered the young lady,
as she determined to keep her own counsel, and confide the news of the
surreptitiously offered ring to the abbess only.

When she had rocked her child to sleep, laid it on its little cot, and
placed two novices o