Sister Dolorosa and Posthumous Fame

ed her at a distance until she entered the convent gates. It caused him subtle pain to think what harm might be lurking to

distinctness against the jasper sky and bathed in a tremulous sea of lovely light. He had held his breath as she advanced towards him. He had watched the play of emotions in her face as she paused a few yards off, and her surprise at the discovery of him-the timid start; the rounding o

art of the country," said the

ollow the forms of the young with such despairing memories. By the chimney-side sat old Ezra, powerful, stupid, tired, silently smoking, and taking little notice of

wed into rich tints from sun and open air; eyes of dark grey-blue, beneath brows low and firm; a moustache golden-brown, thick, and curling above lips red and sensuous; a neck round and full, and bearing aloft a head well poised and moulded. The irresistible effect of his appearance was an impression of simple joyousness in life. There seeme

said the old housewife, observing the elegance of

a hundred miles northward of here. A party of us were on our way further south to hunt. On the train we fell in with a gentleman who told us he thought there were a good many birds around here, and I was chosen to stop over to ascertain. W

they don't like to have it hunted over. All the land between here and the convent belongs to them except the littl

d a convent out in the country, although I believe I have hear

bey is not f

entucky," he said musingly, and a solemn look came over

keen eyes pierced

ht to go

itors at the convent

place. It's a pity you hadn't come sooner. One of the Sisters wa

ation but deepen rather than subdue; and his sudden presence at her fireside was more than grateful. Not satisfied with what he had told, she led the talk back to the blue-grass country, and got from him other facts of his life, asking questions in regard to the features of

history of any

ho are from Kentucky. I have known S

" The name pierce

s called Sister Dolorosa. Her

s not given here-traced up from parentage and childhood with that fine tracery of the feminine mind which is like intricate embroid

y been knit to his mind that he felt it an irritation, a binding pain. He was bidding her g

his eyes in the way with which those who

y, and his face flush

," he replied, wi

, pleased impatience; and when he had left t

d and made her difficult way to her bed.

orld that mighty cord of ecclesiastical influence which of old had braided every European civilisation into an iron tissue of faith. But this knowledge had never touched his imagination. In

him a startling insight into Kentucky history as it was forming in his own time. Moreover-and this touched him especially-it gave him a deeper insight into the possibilities of woman's nature; for a certain narrowness of view regarding the true mission of woman in the world belonged to him

aits: sweet-tempered, patient, and brave; well-formed and handsome; cherishing towards women a sense of chivalry; protecting them fiercely and tenderly; loving them romantically and quickly

the Civil War; his childhood spent amid its ruins; his youth ruled by two contending spirits-discord and peace: and earliest manhood had come to him only in the morning of the new era. It was because the path of his life had thus run between li

been a blameless gentleman of the rural blue-grass kind, with farm, spacious homestead, slaves, leisure, and a library,-to all of which, except the slaves, he would himself succeed upon his father's death-his dream of duty took the form of becoming a rural blue-grass gentleman of the newer type, reviving the best traditions of the past, but putting into his relations with his fellow-creatu

of new activities and forced to the discovery of new ideals. But he cherished no religious passion, being committed by inheritance to a mild, unquestioning, undeviating Protestantism. His religion was more in his conduct than in his prayers, and he tried to live its

Kentucky, descended from unlike pasts, moulded by different influences, striving tow

visible cause is one of the mysteries of our nature." True, before she fell asleep there rose all at once a singularly clear recollection of that silent meeting in the fields; but her prayers fell thick and fast upon it like flake