shut the door.

"Really," she exclaimed, "you two are incomprehensible beings. Don't you
know that people might come in here at any moment? It is fortunate that
I was the person who came in at this moment."

"But you knew he was here?" said Sylvia.

"Yes. I knew that," the other replied, "but I expected you would both
remember that at present this house might almost be considered a public
place."

"My dear Marcia," said Sylvia, "if you knew him as well as I do, you
would know that he would never remember anything about a place."

I turned to the ex-Mother Superior, who had already discarded the garb
of the sisterhood, and was dressed in a dark walking suit.

"If you knew me as well as I know myself," I said, reaching to her both
my hands, "you would know that my gratitude towards you is deeper than
the deepest depths of the earth." She took one of my hands.

"If you have anything to be grateful for," she said, "it is for the
lectures I have given you, and which, I am afraid, I ought to continue
to give you. As to what was done here yesterday I consider myself as
much benefited as anybody, and I suppose Sylvia is of the same opinion
regarding herself. But there is one person to whom you truly ought to be
grateful--Miss Laniston."

"I know that," I said. "I have seen her; she told me what she did, and I
treated her as I would treat a boy who had brushed my coat, but I shall
make amends."

"Indeed you shall," said Sylvia, "and I will go with you when you do
it."

"But you must not set yourself aside in this way," said I, addressing
the older lady, "it was you who fanned my hopes of winning Sylvia when
there seemed no reason why they should not fade away. It was you who
promised to help me, and who did help me."

"Did you do that, Marcia?" asked Sylvia.

The beautiful woman who had been Mother Anastasia flushed a little, as
she answered:--

"Yes, dear, but then you were only a sister on probation."

"And you wanted me to marry him?"

The other smiled and nodded, and in the next moment Sylvia's arms were
about her neck, and Sylvia's lips were on her cheek.

I was very much affected, and there is no knowing how my feelings and
gratitude might have been evinced, had not the clumping of a trunk upon
the stairs and the voices of sisters at the door called me to order.

XLIX.

MY OWN WAY.

When I went home to my grandmother, she was greatly surprised to see me,
and I lost no time in explaining my