erusalem,
staining them crimson, and flooding all the enchanting circle of
the hills that lie round the city with rosy light. Low down in one
of the depressions, where the long sun-rays could not reach, and
the olive-trees looked grey in the twilight, stood the grim, white
Monastery of the Holy Virgin. The air was sweet and cool here, far
from the pollution of the city, and the evening sky stretched fair
and radiant above the purple hills. Unbroken quiet reigned, and
only one thing in the landscape moved--the figure of a girl
ascending swiftly a narrow, stony road under the shadow of the
wall. She seemed burdened with many things that she was carrying,
and oppressed with some haunting fear, for she looked back
frequently, and then pressed on with redoubled speed. The stony
track brought her at last to the corner of the enclosure of
olive-trees belonging to the monastery; it branched here, one path
leading straight to the gates of the building, the other skirting
the olive-wood plantation, and then passing on out into the barren
hills and open country towards Jericho. The girl took the second
track, and here, under the friendly shade of the sheltering trees,
she walked more erect and easily. When she reached the farther
corner of the plantation she stopped and listened, gazing round
her. There was no sound, the light was failing, the hush deepening.
"Nicholas," she breathed in a clear whisper, leaning on the low
stone plantation wall, "are you there?" A rustling of some long
robe against bushes answered her--the olive branches were pushed
aside, and the figure of a Greek priest came from between them.
With a smile of intense joy on his face he leant over the wall, and
clasped the girl's two soft hands in his.

"Esther!" he whispered back, "you have come; you have decided then,
you are ready?"

"I am quite ready," answered the girl, pressing close to the wall
and lifting her face; the last gleam of gold light from the rising
ridge to the west touched it, and showed it was very fair. "If you
are sure it is right, if you have faith in Jehovah to lead us."

The priest's face, pale and emaciated, with the rapt look of the
visionary stamped upon it, lighted up suddenly with a new
exaltation.

"I am quite sure. Last night when I was praying, still in doubt,
before the great crucifix, I heard a voice from above saying:
'Nicholas, you are absolved from further prayer and penance here.
Go forth with the maiden you love and