it was the look of one who had suffered deeply and in silence. He was a man of few words and his errand was quickly explained. He was obliged to be absent from home the greater part of the time and could not attend to the education of his little girl as he would like to do. His wife was not of our faith and was also too busily occupied to look after the child. He did not mention that her occupation was that of society butterfly, who sacrificed homelife, husband and child in the pursuit of pleasure. Would Reverend Mother kindly undertake the charge of his little Nita's education, spiritual as well as intellectual? Would she be to the child what father and mother ought to be and could not?

Reverend Mother had gladly undertaken the task, and since then Nita had never been separated from her even for a day. During the vacations, when other pupils scattered far and wide to their various homes, Nita had remained at the convent, roaming at will through the deserted class-room and beautiful grounds. She was the pet and darling of the entire community. In the long summer afternoons when the nuns carried their sewing out to the orchard behind the house, or to the pine grove on the hill, where one could obtain such a lovely view of the river, Nita would flit about amongst them like a veritable woodland fairy. Her snatches of song and merry laughter made sylvan echoes ring and brought smiles to the faces of the simple women who watched her with loving sympathetic glances.

Many a time, especially of late, had Reverend Mother looked at her with anxious foreboding in her eyes. What would the future hold for this child of hers, endowed as she was with singular beauty and a wonderful voice? She was a docile child, sunny and sweet-tempered, and that very pliancy of nature was what caused the nun many a moment of uneasiness. What would become of her once she had left the shelter of her convent home and was exposed to the influence of the light-hearted, merry, soulless mother from whom she had inherited her beauty; the mother whose only god was pleasure, whose one ambition was to be the best dressed, the most popular, the most envied woman in her set. The only hope lay in keeping Nita at the convent as long as possible, or at least until her character had developed sufficiently to enable her to enter her mother's world and hold her own against it. Still, Reverend Mother dreaded the day when she must part with her child, and now that the parting had come so unexpectedly, so much sooner than she had anticipated, it was doubly hard to bear.

The nun knelt in the chapel that June evening and prayed with all her heart, not only for the future of the girl whose voice filled the air with such exquisite melody, but also for help to break to that girl as gently as possible the sad news awaiting her. Word had just arrived that her father lay dangerously ill and Nita must hasten to his bedside if she wished to see him once more in this world. The carriage was waiting and Nita must go at once.

The Benediction over and the lights extinguished, all save the tiny radiance of the Sanctuary lamp, with a final appealing glance towards the Tabernacle door, Reverend Mother left the chapel, descended to her office, where she was accustomed to interview the pupils each in turn, and summoned Nita to her presence.

A little later she stood at the foot of the convent steps and watched the carriage drive away with a weeping, forlorn little figure huddled in one corner, while the good lay-sister who accompanied her vainly essayed words of cheer and consolation. She watched with tear-dimmed eyes as the carriage rolled rapidly down the avenue and out through the gate, then entered the house and repaired at once to her refuge in all trials and afflictions that might beset her way, the convent chapel. There, with her eyes on the little golden door behind which the dearest and best of Comforters is always waiting for the sorrowful, the sin-laden, the weary-hearted, to come to Him, she found consolation and peace. Her child was in the Lord's hands and surely in those hands she would be safe.

Many times have the June roses blossomed and fallen since the night on which Reverend Mother stood in the convent doorway and watched the departure of the carriage which was bearing her child away from her out into the world of suffering and sin. Once more, the June sunshine is flooding the land and the air is heavy with the odor of June blossoms. In a small town in the south of France, a young woman, gowned in deepest mourning, sits by her own casement and gazes gloomily, despairingly, out into the gathering twilight. On a table at her side is a small pile of money which she has counted over and over again in the vain hope that she may have made a mistake and that, perhaps, after all, the amount is not quite so small as she has made it out to be. That little pile of money represents her entire worldly wealth, and when it is gone what is to become of her? Work? She glances at the soft, delicate hands resting idly in her lap. Their whiteness is dazzling as compared with the black of her gown, and she smiles rather bitterly. What work could hands like those perform? They are beautiful certainly, but useless, absolutely useless, just as she herself is useless. There is not one thing by which she can earn her daily bread, and earn it she must or starve. To what a pass has she come; she, who at one time had wealth at her command and the world at her feet.

As she sits there, broken in spirit, broken in health, a middle-aged woman in appearance, while in years not much beyond her first youth, she recalls those triumphs of her past. Her success had been marvelous though short-lived. Her mind wanders back to the days when she was the pet and idol of musical Europe. The mere announcement that she was to sing would pack the largest opera house to the very doors. Ah! those days of triumph, when she had passed from one success to another, when the mighty ones of the earth were pleased to do her honor, when the incense of praise and flattery was burned day and night upon the shrine of her greatness. Her mother was with her then, the beautiful, fairylike little mother for whom her love had been almost worship. Her voice had been with her, too, that voice at which two continents had marveled. Both are gone now, the beautiful mother, the wonderful voice; gone, gone forever, and she is alone in the world, alone and poor and friendless.

She recalls the first and only time when she appeared in public in America, her native land. She did not want to sing that night, for her mother, who had been slightly ailing for some time, seemed very much worse. She had decided not to appear at all, but had finally yielded to the mother's entreaties and driven to the opera house. What an ovation she had received that night! She could see it all again: the lights, the flowers, the music, the vast audience simply frantic with delight at her performance. At the close she had been recalled again and again, and those enthusiastic plaudits still rang in her ears. How little she had dreamed as she smiled and bowed her thanks, and how little those who watched her had dreamed that never again was that wonderful voice to be heard by mortal ears, that voice which had stirred millions of hearts and made its owner one of the foremost singers of her day.

She had driven home from that scene of triumph to find that her mother's condition had become alarmingly worse in the few hours of her absence, and before morning she had stood beside a deathbed the recollection of which makes her shudder even now. The poor, pretty butterfly, her short summer over, fought frantically but vainly against the annihilation which was coming upon her. The memory of her early