it to eat my supper, and after I had
taken a basin of soup I felt more comforted.

Then Sister Angela lit a lamp and taking my hand she led me up a stone
staircase to the Dormitory, which was a similar room, but not so silent,
because it was full of beds, and the breathing of the girls, who were
all asleep, made it sound like the watchmaker's shop in our village,
only more church-like and solemn.

My bed was near to the door, and after Sister Angela had helped me to
undress, and tucked me in, she made her voice very low, and said I would
be quite comfortable now, and she was sure I was going to be a good
little girl and a dear child of the Infant Jesus; and then I could not
help taking my arms out again and clasping her round the neck and
drawing her head down and kissing her.

After that she took the lamp and went away to a cubicle which was
partitioned off the end of the Dormitory and there I could see her
prepare to go to bed herself--taking the white bands off her cheeks and
the black band off her forehead, and letting her long light hair fall
in beautiful wavy masses about her face, which made her look so sweet
and home like.

But oh, I was so lonely! Never in my life since--no, not even when I was
in my lowest depths--have I felt so little and helpless and alone. After
the Sister had gone to bed and everything was quiet in the Dormitory
save for the breathing of the girls--all strangers to me and I to
them--from mere loneliness I covered up my head in the clothes just as I
used to do when I was a little thing and my father came into my mother's
room.

I try not to think bitterly of my father, but even yet I am at a loss to
know how he could have cast me away so lightly. Was it merely that he
wanted peace for his business and saw no chance of securing it in his
own home except by removing the chief cause of Aunt Bridget's jealousy?
Or was it that his old grudge against Fate for making me a girl made him
wish to rid himself of the sight of me?

I do not know. I cannot say. But in either case I try in vain to see how
he could have thought he had a right, caring nothing for me, to tear me
from the mother who loved me and had paid for me so dear; or how he
could have believed that because he was my father, charged with the care
of my poor little body, he had control over the little bleeding heart
which was not his to make to suffer.

He is my father--God help me to think the best of him.

THIRTEENTH CHA