grieved."

"Such deceit! Such disgraceful effrontery! She brazenly denies they are hers!" broke in Mère Perpétua, her lean face working.

"Silence!" cried the Superior. "Mère Perpétua, you forget yourself. I had not desired you to speak." She paused a moment, then addressed Ragna.

"You will tell us, my child, all that you know about this; it is your duty to your companion, to us, and to yourself. On your frankness depends to a large extent the punishment I shall deem it necessary to impose; you may lighten it very appreciably, by telling the truth—but if you hesitate, if I understand that you are withholding anything, it will be the worse for both of you."

Mère Perpétua's interruption had been brief, but illuminating. Ragna felt that her way was made clear, it was with a steady eye and a firm, if slightly unnatural voice, that she answered:

"Reverend Mother, the letters are mine; I gave them to Astrid to keep for me."

The effect was electrical. Astrid gasped and her jaw dropped; Mère Perpétua stared at Ragna with the expression of one who has cherished a viper in her bosom, and only just found it out. Sœur Angélique gave a cry that was almost a sob. Ragna was her favourite, and she could have wept with disappointment. Only the Superior showed no surprise; her hands clasped the Book of Hours a little more tightly, and her keen eyes fixed on Ragna's face seemed trying to penetrate her very soul, that was all. Ragna returned her gaze without wavering.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Three months."

"Why did you not keep the letters yourself?"

"I was afraid of being found out!"

"Oh!" said the Reverend Mother, and laughed a little.

Her eyes went from Ragna, straight and proud, to Astrid, trembling violently, and gazing anxiously at her friend.

"And did you answer the letters?"

"Yes."

"Who posted them for you?" Silence.

"Come, who posted them for you?"

"I will not tell," said Ragna. "I will tell anything that I have done myself, but I refuse to tell on others—besides, the blame is mine in any case."

The Superior nodded her head. "I shall not press the point now, we can return to it later if need be. Are you aware of the result of this, of what you have done? No punishment can be too severe for the girl who deceives her friends and teachers so disgracefully, who sets so deplorable an example to her fellow-pupils. What will your parents say to this?"

Ragna went pale: "Oh Reverend Mother," she pleaded, "do anything to me you like, but don't let them know of it! Oh, I know I have done wrong, punish me as much as you please, but don't tell them!"

Astrid gathered herself together for a supreme effort; her cowardly little soul, shamed by her friend's generosity, rose to her lips. With tightly clasped hands, she stepped forward and began:

"Reverend Mother!"—but Ragna interrupted her quickly. She must do the thing thoroughly or not at all; having put her hand to the plough, she would not turn back.

"Reverend Mother, it has been very wrong of me, and I am sorry and ashamed. Punish me however you like. I am to blame, but don't punish Astrid, or hurt my parents; it is no fault of theirs."

The Superior laid her book on the table; her eyes, as she looked at Ragna were full of kindly amusement, and also of respect.

"Sœur Angélique," she said, "take these girls to their dormitories, and keep them till Benediction, afterwards I shall tell them what I have decided upon."

As the door closed on the three, she turned to Mère Perpétua smiling.

"Well?" she said.

"What will you do with them, Reverend Mother? Shall they be publicly expelled?"

"Ragna, as she has confessed, will be 'excused' from further walks outside the Convent; Astrid, for having concealed the letters will be kept at home also. You, ma Mère, will see that no word of this business gets about among the girls—I wish no one to speak of it, no one."

Mère Perpétua was a study in pained amazement.

"What!" she burst forth. "No adequate punishment? Nothing to put that brazen girl to shame for her indecent conduct? She stands here in your presence and admits to having received the letters, and answered them, to having corrupted her companion, as she might say: 'I have said thirty Aves'! Oh Reverend Mother, you are too lenient! It is unjust!"

"So that is how you understand it, ma Mère? Has life taught you nothing?"

"Life has taught me that sin requires punishment," she rejoined grimly.

"Ma Mère, I see that I must open your eyes; those letters were not written to Ragna."

"Not written to her! Why she confessed that they were hers!"

"So she did, to save Astrid."

"Well, that only makes it worse, she has lied outrageously, and so has Astrid—and you let them go unpunished!"

"I consider that Ragna's lie is a good lie, ma Mère. A generous lie is better than a mean truth. I make a pretence of punishing her so that she may not know I understand; vicarious punishment, if suffered voluntarily, is good for the soul. As for Astrid, she is weak and foolish, she has been thoroughly frightened, and is not likely to fall again in the same direction—for the present at least. The sight of Ragna, bearing the blame that should be hers, will do more for her than any punishment you or I might inflict."

Mère Perpétua gazed at her Superior in amazement; though still disapproving, she had a dim perception of the other's greatness of soul, and the insight into human nature, that had made her, while still young in years, the Head of the Community.

"You may go, ma Mère, and after Benediction you will bring our two black sheep here."

So dismissed, Mère Perpétua took her departure, shaking her head.

The Superior remained alone, leaning her head on her hand. She thought of the many young lives under her care, of the many girls she had seen come and go. She thought of the many natures hopelessly warped by a mistaken or untimely severity, shut in upon themselves, black-frosted, as it were, in the very hour when they most need drawing out, training and guiding by a sympathetic hand. She loved Ragna, her whole heart was drawn to the girl in admiration for her generous assumption of the other's fault. "She is too ready to take up others' burdens," she thought; "God send that her own be not too heavy for her shoulders!"

The bell for Benediction interrupted her meditation. As she walked along the passages to the Chapel the same thought pursued her, and when from her carved stall she recognized Ragna's fair head, bowed among her fellows, she seemed to see the halo of future suffering about it.

Ragna bending over her prayer-book, was wondering what the punishment would be; and half defiantly she squared her shoulders to meet it. She thought of Astrid, divided between contemptuous pity, and real sympathy for the agonized fear displayed by the butterfly creature.

Astrid was sobbing her heart out, her face hid between her hands. She despised herself for her weakness, and reproached herself for letting Ragna take the blame. Later she would resent her friend's generosity, but just now she fairly grovelled in self-abasement; she took a morbid delight in mortifying herself in her own eyes, as formerly she had exulted in the thought of her sentimental superiority over her comrades.

The level rays of sunlight tinged with the glory of Saints, touched the rows of young heads, passing over some, distinguishing others, colouring with purple and crimson the tresses, dark and fair, of the kneeling girls, and the Chaplain holding aloft the Ostensory with its symbol of the Great Sacrifice, glowed in a mystic radiance. Then the light went, and the tapers on the altar twinkled like stars in the sudden twilight.

After the concluding hymns, Ragna and Astrid were again conducted to the Superior's sitting-room, to hear her decision. The Reverend Mother had chosen a good moment, for the service of Benediction had