, and with a sinking heart I went to her room, knowing well
what she was going to say.

"You are not to go home for the holidays this time, my child. You are to
remain here, and Sister Angela is to stay to take care of you."

She had a letter from Father Dan, telling her that my mother was still
unwell, and for this and other reasons it was considered best that I
should not return at Christmas.

Father Dan had written a letter to me also, beginning, "My dear daughter
in Jesus" and ending "Yours in Xt," saying it was not his fault that he
could not fulfil his promise, but my father was much from home
now-a-days and Aunt Bridget was more difficult than ever, so perhaps I
should be happier at the Convent.

It was a bitter blow, though the bitterest part of it lay in the fear
that the girls would think I was of so little importance to my people
that they did not care to see me.

But the girls were too eager about their own concerns to care much about
me, and even on the very last day and at the very last moment, when
everything was bustle and joy, and boxes were being carried downstairs,
and everybody was kissing everybody else and wishing each other a Happy
Christmas, and then flying away like mad things, and I alone was being
left, Alma herself, before she stepped into a carriage in which a stout
lady wearing furs was waiting to receive her, only said:

"By-by, Margaret Mary! Take care of Sister Angela."

Next day the Reverend Mother went off to her cottage at Nemi, and the
other nuns and novices to their friends in the country, and then Sister
Angela and I were alone in the big empty, echoing convent--save for two
elderly lay Sisters, who cooked and cleaned for us, and the Chaplain,
who lived by himself in a little white hut like a cell which stood at
the farthest corner of the garden.

We moved our quarters to a room in the front of the house, so as to look
out over the city, and down into the piazza which was full of traffic,
and after a while we had many cheerful hours together.

During the days before Christmas we spent our mornings in visiting the
churches and basilicas where there were little illuminated models of the
Nativity, with the Virgin and the Infant Jesus in the stable among the
straw. The afternoons we spent at home in the garden, where the
Chaplain, in his black soutane and biretta, was always sitting under the
old tree, reading his breviary.

His name was Father Giovanni and he was a tall you