her slim young fingers began to imitate the gnarled
old ones as they weeded and straightened. "I wonder at it, Sister
Wynfreda, that you do not urge me to creep in with you. A year ago, you
wanted it when I wanted it not; but now when I am willing, you hold me
off."

"Is it clear before your mind that you are willing, my daughter?" the
nun asked gently. As she drew herself to her feet with the aid of a
bush, the cramping of her feeble stiffened muscles contracted her face
in momentary pain, but her eyes were serene as the altar lamps. "It
lies upon you to remember, little sister, that those who would serve
God around the altar must not go thither only because the world has
mistreated them and they would cast it off to avenge the smart. She who
puts on the yoke of Christ must needs do so because it is the thing
she would desire of all, were all precious things spread out for her
choosing. Can you look into my eyes and say that it would be so with
you?"

Where she knelt before her, the girl suddenly threw her arms around the
woman and hid her face in the faded robes. The frail hand stroked the
dark hair affectionately. "Think not that I would upbraid you with it,
child as dear as my own heart. When the Power that took you from me led
you back again, and I read what God's fingers had written on your face
that before was like a lineless parchment, I could not find it in my
mind to wish you otherwise. I felt only shame for the weakness of my
faith, and joy past all telling."

Under the soothing hand, Randalin's sobs slowly ceased; when at last
she raised her wet eyes there was no longer rebellion in them but only
youth's measureless despair. "Sister, now as always, I want to do what
you would have me--but I am so full of grief! Must I go back to Avalcomb
and begin all over again? It seems to me that my life stretches before
me no more alluringly than yonder dusty road, that runs straight on, on,
over vast spaces but always empty."

The beauty that had been Sister Wynfreda's hovered now about her mouth
as fragrance around a dead rose. Her gaze was on a branch above them
where a little brown bird, calling plaintively, was slipping from her
nest. Over the wattled edge, two tiny brown heads were peeping like
fuzzy beech-nut rinds. "I wonder," she said, "what those little
creatures up there will think when a few months hence the blue sky
becomes leaden, such that no one of them ever before recollected it so
dark, and the sun