with the sun, flushed
with the bloom of the flower, seemed the natural product of the
beautiful earth. You could almost hear the myriad sounds of summer;
waters trickling through the moss and roots of the wood, the hum of
bees, the birds' joyous songs. The very sunlight seemed to dance for
gladness among the leaf-shadows as it played over the grey garb of the
Sisters. But you knew that in another moment the door would open and
close again, shutting out all these common human joys--kisses and smiles
and signs of that everyday bliss which makes a paradise of simple lives.

Now Elsie, in her loneliness, had had her dreams of the convent. But a
picture of this kind was a better warning than any sermon which a
hot-headed Protestant ever preached. There are natures which can put
forth blossoms, pale and sweet, in the air of the cloister, and there
are others which can flower only in the atmosphere of the world.

The pity is that the women meant for the world too often fly to the
cloister, and the women who would have made admirable nuns--

"Devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,"

persist in taking upon themselves those duties of wifehood and maternity
for which they were never fitted at all.

Elsie had a rich heart, but its outpourings seemed to be thrown back
upon herself, and she had sometimes longed to hide her disappointment in
seclusion. But the picture spoke to her, as pictures can do. True art
can often succeed where divinity fails; the painter preaches more
effectually than the parson.

She gazed at the nuns, quite unconscious that she herself made a
picture, and that some one was gazing intently at her. Then, slowly
realising that Mr. Lennard had found another acquaintance, she turned,
and met the earnest look of a pair of deep-blue eyes.

They were uncommon eyes, singularly blue, singularly true. Their owner
was a tall man, much bronzed, and not regularly handsome; but he had
that knightliness of look and bearing which always wins notice and
attracts liking. Although he wore the prosaic garb of the period, there
was something about him that suggested Camelot, and Arthur's court;
something that recalled Lancelot, and Galahad, and Percivale; something,
in short, which appealed to the romantic side of Elsie's nature. So
these two young persons looked at each other, but it did not occur to
Mr. Lennard that they might possibly like to get acquainted.

Moreover, it was near the luncheon h