and at the same time filling the air with
howlings, but returned speedily to her purpose.

"Did you say you had fixed the day, Honora?"

"In September, any day before the end of the month."

"You were never made for the convent," with seriousness. "Too fond of
the running about in life, and your training is all against it."

"My training!" said Honora.

"All your days you were devoted to one man, weren't you? And to the
cause of a nation, weren't you? And to the applause of the crowd,
weren't you? Now, my dear, when you find it necessary to make a change
in your habits, the changes should be in line with those habits.
Otherwise you may get a jolt that you won't forget. In a convent, there
will be no man, no Ireland, and no crowd, will there? What you should
have done was to marry Lord Conny, and to keep right on doing what you
had done before, only with more success. Now when the next man comes
along, do not let the grand opportunity go."

"I'll risk the jolt," Honora replied. "But this next man about whom you
have been hinting since you came up here? Is this the man?"

She pointed to the path leading into the woods. Louis came towards them
in a hurry, having promised them a trip to the rocks of Valcour. The
young deacon was in fighting trim after a month on the farm, the pallor
of hard study and confinement had fled, and the merry prospect ahead
made his life an enchantment. Only his own could see the slight but
ineffaceable mark of his experience with Sister Claire.

"Take care," whispered Mona. "He is not the man, but the man's agent."

Louis bounced into the raspberry enclosure and flung himself at their
feet.

"Tell me," said Honora mischievously. "Is there any man in love with me,
and planning to steal away my convent from me? Tell me true, Louis."

The deacon sat up and cast an indignant look on his sister.

"Shake not thy gory locks at me," she began cooly....

"There it is," he burst out. "Do you know, Honora, I think marriage
turns certain kinds of people, the redheads in particular, quite daft.
This one is never done talking about her husband, her baby, her
experience, her theory, her friends who are about to marry, or who want
to marry, or who can't marry. She can't see two persons together without
patching up a union for them...."

"Everybody should get married," said Mona serenely, "except priests and
nuns. Mona is not a nun, therefore she should get married."

"The reasoning is all right