st could with difficulty extract brief and
inadvertent replies to his repeated questions. Rufinus himself was
anxious; but just as he rose to go in search of her, Pulcheria, who was
at the window, saw her coming, and joyfully exclaiming: "There she is!"
ran out.

But now again minute after minute passed, a quarter of an hour grew to
half an hour, and still Orion was waiting in vain. Glad expectation
had long since turned to impatience, impatience to a feeling of injured
dignity, and this to annoyance and bitter vexation, when at last
Pulcheria came back instead of Paula, and begged him from Paula to join
her in the garden.

She had been detained too long at the convent. The terrible rumor had
scared the pious sisters out of their wonted peace and put them all into
confusion, like smoke blown into a bee-hive. The first thing was to pack
their most valuable possessions; and although Orion had expressly said
only a small number of cases and bags could be taken on board, one was
for dragging her prayer-desk, another a large picture of some saint, a
third a copper fish-kettle, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth the great
reliquary with the bones of Ammonius the Martyr, to which the chapel
owed its reputation for peculiar sanctity. To reduce this excess
of baggage, the abbess had been obliged to exert all her energy and
authority, and many a sister retired weeping over some dear but too
bulky treasure.

The superior had therefore been unable to devote herself to Paula till
this portable property had been under review. Then the damsel had
been admitted to her parlor, a room furnished with rich and elegant
simplicity, and there she had been allowed to pour out her whole heart
to warm and sympathetic ears.

Any one who could have seen these two together might have thought that
this was a daughter in grief seeking counsel on her mother's breast.
In her youth the grey-haired abbess must have been very like Thomas'
daughter; but the lofty and yet graceful mien of the younger woman had
changed in the matron to majestic and condescending dignity, and it was
impossible to guess from her defiantly set mouth that it had once been
the chief charm of her face.

As she listened to the girl's outpourings the expression of her calm
eyes changed frequently; when her soul was fired by fanatical zeal
they could gleam brightly; but now she was listening to a variety of
experiences, for Paula regarded this interview as a solemn confession,
a