here was an angelic gift, a relief and a joy.

"I will begin," she said, "at the point where I left off reading." She
took up a portion of the manuscript, she brought her chair within a yard
of the grating, she sat down with her face toward me, and she read.
Sometimes she stopped and spoke of what she was reading, now to ask a
question, and now to tell something she had seen in the place I
described. I said but little. I did not wish to occupy any of that
lovely morning with my words,--words which were bound to mean nothing.
As she read and talked, some color came into her face; she looked more
like herself. What a shame to shut up such a woman in a House where she
never had anything interesting to talk about, never anybody interested
to talk to!

After the reading of half a dozen pages during which she had not
interrupted herself, she laid the manuscript in her lap, and asked me
the time. I told her it wanted twenty minutes of twelve. She made no
answer, but rose, put the manuscript in the drawer, and then returned
with a little note which she had taken from her pocket.

"Mother Anastasia desired me to give you this," she said, folding it so
that she could push it through one of the interstices of the grating;
"she told me to hand it to you as I was coming away, but I don't think
she would object to your reading it a little before that."

I took the note, unfolded it, and read it. Mother Anastasia wrote an
excellent hand. She informed me that it had been decided that the sister
of the House of Martha who had been acting as my amanuensis should not
continue in that position, but should now devote herself to another
class of work. If, however, I desired it, another sister would take her
place.

I stood unable to speak. I must have been as pale as the white paint on
the door-frame near which I stood.

"You see," said Sylvia, and from the expression upon her face I think
she must have perceived that I did not like what I had read, "this is
the work of Sister Sarah. I might as well tell you that at once, and I
am sure there is no harm in my doing so. She has always objected to my
writing for you; and although the morning she spent with you would have
satisfied any reasonable person that there could be no possible
objection to my doing it, she has not ceased to insist that I shall give
it up, and go to the Measles Refuge. That, however, I will not do, but I
cannot come here any more. Mother Anastasia and I are both sur