LITMIR.BIZ

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at intervals during the next twenty-four hours. Zella's tears were always very ready, and in the general atmosphere of moisture and farewell they flowed easily.

      Her emotion gave rise to a certain amount of compassion amongst the girls, all more or less in a state of excitement and tension at the prospect of two months' holiday. Zella came nearer to realizing her dream of popularity during her last day at school than ever before.

      She walked about the garden arm-in-arm with companions who had hitherto serenely ignored her existence, exchanged lavish promises of correspondence with girls with whom she had nothing in common save one or two years spent under the same roof, and visited every shrine and statue in the house and grounds with the inward murmured petition, "Oh, bring me back here soon, for always!"

      It was almost impossible to resist dropping hints of a future return, which impressed the other girls quite unmistakably, but Zella reserved her most touching effusions for her farewell interview with Reverend Mother.

      "Oh, Reverend Mother, I feel that I shall come back!" she cried with uplifted eyes and that ring of innocent conviction in her voice which always made her feel most in earnest. "I can't feel that I'm really leaving the convent; it seems, somehow, meant to be my home. I shall come back very, very soon, if you'll have me, and then I think God means me to stay here always."

      "What, instead of the Carmelites?" said Reverend Mother, smiling a little.

      Zella had momentarily forgotten her recent aspirations towards Mount Carmel, but she contrived not to look disconcerted, and to maintain her slightly exalted expression.

      "I think so. I think—I hope—that I only want to go where God wishes me to be, but it seems to me that I wasn't sent here in such a wonderful way for nothing."

      "Well, my dear child, I shall pray for you with all my heart," said Reverend Mother, serious at last. "If you have indeed a religious vocation, it is a most wonderful grace, and you must be very, very faithful."

      "Oh, I will be!" interposed Zella fervently.

      "Do not forget your spiritual reading, and all the pious practices you have learnt here. I know that there may be difficulties as to daily Mass," continued Reverend Mother with an air of concession; "but when you can, you will make a point of it, I know."

      "Oh yes, yes!"

      "Above all, my dear child, be faithful to your meditation. A quarter of an hour every day—I will not ask you to promise more."

      "It shall be half an hour," declared Zella resolutely.

      "Well, well, you are a good fervent child, and must see what you have time for. There will be home duties as well which must not be neglected—your good father, for instance. There will be many little ways in which you can add to his comfort—perhaps see that his room is well dusted, or do some mending for him now and then."

      Zella tried not to think that the household at Villetswood would be more disconcerted than edified if she indulged in these domestic pieties.

      "You will be a good child, I feel sure, and perhaps one day you will have the happiness of bringing your father into the Church. I shall pray much for that, and for you. Now, my dear child, there are others waiting to see me, and I must say good-bye to you."

      Zella dropped on to her knees.

      "Oh, give me your blessing, Reverend Mother!" she implored in a muffled voice.

      She rose from her knees with the ready tears streaming down her face.

      After this, it was a matter of course that her other farewells should be interspersed with quivering tones and tearful outbursts.

      Mother Veronica, enshrouded in several additional veils, and wearing a long cloak over her habit, was to escort those of the girls who were going to London, where their respective relatives would meet them. She stood waiting in the hall, grasping a large umbrella that seemed strangely out of place under a cloudless midsummer sky, and a straw receptacle apparently held together by pieces of string, and bulging with books of devotion.

      Zella came slowly down the stairs, wearing the dark blue school uniform and unbecoming hard straw hat for the last time.

      "Are you ready, dear? And where is Dorothy? The cab is at the door. Better get in, children.."

      "Good-bye! good-bye!" clamoured the girls who were not going till later.

      "Good-bye! Pray for me—mind you write soon."

      "Yes, yes, I'll write this very evening."

      "Here you are at last, Dorothy! Now then, children, get into the cabs. You two can come with me, and you two little ones—no, no! I must have a Child of Mary in the other cab. Get in, Mary."

      Thus Mother Veronica, brisk and business-like, and altogether disturbing Zella's last long view of the convent by her incessant zeal for organization.

      "Put up that window, Zella; little Agnes has got a cold, and we mustn't let it get worse. Dear me! the glass fits very badly into the frame, and looks as though it would be the better for a good cleaning. Don't lean back, dear, that cushion looks so extremely dirty. I wish the poor man kept his cab cleaner, but we mustn't rashly judge him; I dare say he hasn't the time, a man with a very large family. Murphey I believe his name is, and Reverend Mother has always employed him for the last twenty years."

      Zella tried to take a last look at the convent as the cab jolted through the iron gates.

      "Zella, if you want to look out of the window, you had better pull your plait over your shoulder, and not let it rub against the cushion. You can never tell what you might pick up in this sort of vehicle. However, it's a charity to employ the poor man, no doubt; and he is a most excellent Catholic, and comes to confession quite regularly."

      Zella drew out her handkerchief and dried her eyes as the convent was finally lost to view amongst the trees.

      "My girlhood is over for ever," she thought to herself, "and I am beginning real life. I am grown up."

      It seemed difficult to realize.

      In the train Mary McNeill continued to sniff persistently, but the others began to catch the infectious excitement of those girls who were only going home for the holidays, and would return to the convent in September.

      Installed in a third-class carriage which the party completely filled, Sister Veronica remarked impressively:

      "Now, children, we will say the Litany, in order that we may have a safe journey. In the Name of--"

      This was done, and during the monotonous recital Zella decided that she owed it to her father to forget her sorrow and be brave. She made a final application of her pocket-handkerchief, and then put it away with a certain sense of relief.

      She began to feel more excited than she had hitherto allowed herself to be, at the thought of being grown up. What would happen to her?

      For a little while Zella indulged in vague dreamy visions of social success, and of the magnificent offers of marriage which would probably mark the progress of her first London season.

      "Aunt Marianne, I do hope that you will let Muriel be one of my bridesmaids. I know she isn't yet come out, but, still, she's only a few months younger than I am, and I am going to be married. ..."

      Then Zella remembered that her role would be that of declining these dazzling alliances, in order to renounce the world at the age of twenty-one, and offer up her youth and beauty for the service of God in the cloister.

      "Aunt Marianne, I cannot marry the Duke, however much you may all urge me to. I am going to be a nun."

      But somehow this vision was less satisfactory than the other. It seemed impossible to conjecture what Aunt Marianne's reply to such an announcement might be, but Zella did not feel that it would be of a complimentary description.

      However, God of course would appreciate one's sacrifice, whatever the world might say, Zella assured herself, faintly uneasy.

      At the terminus Louis was awaiting her.

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