What a happy stillness reigned in the house for hours, while Tilderee was tenderly brought back from the verge of starvation!  In the beginning she was too feeble to speak; but after a while Mrs. Prentiss noticed that she wanted to say something, and, bending over her, caught the tremulous words:  “Oh mother, I’ll never be disobedient any more!” It was then that the good woman, who, as the saying is, “had kept up” wonderfully, was overcome, and wept unrestrainedly.

As for Joan, it seemed to her that there could never be any mourning or sadness again.  When she had done everything possible for Tilderee, she lavished attentions upon Fudge, and announced to him that henceforth he was to be called Fido (faithful); at which he wagged his tail, as if he found the role of hero quite to his liking.  Joan’s heart was so light that she wished everyone in the world could share her happiness; but whether she laughed or chattered, or hummed a little song to herself, the refrain of all this gladness was “Oh, how good God is!  How good God is!”

A LITTLE WHITE DRESS.

“Only three weeks more, Constance.  Aren’t you glad?” said Lillie to her little companion and neighbor as they hurried to school.

“Indeed I am.  But it’s so long in coming!” sighed Constance.  “The days never seemed to go so slowly before.”

“I have made a calendar, and every morning I cross off a date; there are already seven gone since the 1st of May,” explained Lillie, with a satisfied air, as if she had discovered the secret of adding “speed to the wings of time.”  “We shall not have a great while to wait now.”

Was it a grand holiday that our young friends were anticipating so eagerly, or the summer vacation, now drawing near?  One might suppose something of the kind.  But not at all.  On the approaching Feast of the Ascension they were to make their First Communion; and, being convent-bred little girls, every thought and act had been directed to preparation for this great event, to which they looked forward with the artless fervor natural to innocent childhood.  No one must imagine, however, that they were diminutive prudes, with long faces.  Is not a girl or boy gayest when his or her heart has no burden upon it?  In fact, it would have been hard to find two merrier folk, even upon this bright spring morning.

Lillie was a sprightly creature, who, somehow, always reminded Sister Agnes of one of the angels in Murillo’s picture, “The Immaculate Conception,”—­a lively, happy-go-lucky, rollicking angel, who plays hide-and-seek among the folds of Our Lady’s mantle, and appears almost beside himself with the gladness of heaven’s sunlight.  Yet Lillie was by no means an angel.  She had her faults of course, and these often sadly tried the patience of the good Sister.  She was quick-tempered, volatile, inclined to be a trifle vain.  Alas that it is so hard to keep a child’s heart like a garden enclosed as with a fragrant hedge, laden with the blossoms of sweet thoughts,—­safely shut in from the chilling winds of worldliness!  She was lovable withal, generous, affectionate, and would make a fine woman if properly trained.