rette.

"Very good: then I will make application for it. Good night! no time to
stay. Mabel? Oh, she's all right. Farewell!"

And Romund shut the door and disappeared.

"Deary me, that seems done all of a hurry like!" said Isel. "I don't
half like such sudden, hasty sort of work. Derette, child, are you sure
you'll not be sorry?"

"No, I don't think I shall, Mother. I shall have more liberty in the
anchorhold than in the nunnery."

"More liberty, quotha!" cried Isel in amazement. "Whatever can the
child mean? More liberty, penned up in two little chambers, and never
to leave them all your life, than in a fine large place like Godstowe,
with a big garden and cloisters to walk in?"

"Ah, Mother, I don't want liberty for my feet, but for my soul. There
will be no abbess nor sisters to tease one in the anchorhold."

"Well, and what does that mean, but never a bit of company? Just your
one maid, and tied up to her. And the child calls it `liberty'!"

"You forget, Mother," said Haimet mischievously. "There will be the
Lady Derette. In the cloister they are only plain Sister."

Every recluse had by courtesy the title of a baron.

"As if I cared for that rubbish!" said Derette with sublime scorn.

"Dear! I thought you were going on purpose," retorted her brother.

"Whom will you have for your maid, Derette?" asked her sister.

"Ermine, if I might have her," answered Derette with a smile.

Gerhardt suddenly stopped the reply which Ermine was about to make.

"No," he said, "leave it alone to-night, dear. Lay it before the Lord,
and ask of Him whether that is the road He hath prepared for thee to
walk in. It might be for the best, Ermine."

There was a rather sorrowful intonation in his voice.

"I will wait till the morning, and do as you desire," was Ermine's
reply. "But I could give the answer to-night, for I know what it will
be. The best way, and the prepared way, is that which leads the
straightest Home."

It was very evident, when the morning arrived, that Gerhardt would much
have liked Ermine to accept the lowly but safe and sheltered position of
companion to Derette in the anchorhold. While the hermit lived alone,
but wandered about at will, the anchorite, who was never allowed to
leave his cell, always had with him a companion of his own sex, through
whom he communicated with the outer world. Visitors of the same sex, or
children, could enter the cell freely, or the anchorite might