of this rivalry on the road, sent for her and remonstrated, alleging that such “fast” conduct might lend itself to scandalous rumors, and was altogether unbecoming in a religious.  The nun smiled, and protested that she was ready to obey her superiors’ orders in every particular, as all good Catholics and good religious are bound to do, but slyly insinuated the following cogent argument:  “Does not Your Lordship think, however, that, since our convent lives partly on the reputation of this famous breed of trotters, it is hardly for the credit of the house that its representative conveyance should drag along as dejectedly as a street-vendor’s donkey-cart?” What the bishop’s reply was “the deponent sayeth not,” but we may infer that this shrewd woman was at least as capable of controlling a wide meshwork of business details as he was of managing his diocese.  Now, there are many such women in convents, for the religious life leads not, as people think, to a renunciation of your own self-dependence, but on the contrary to the highest kind of confidence in your own power when backed by the help of Almighty God.  Saint Teresa of Spain once said these memorable words:  “Teresa and tenpence are nothing:  Teresa, tenpence and God are omnipotent.”

LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.

THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.

BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF “PATRICIA KEMBALL.”

CHAPTER XXV.

SMALL CAUSES.

The frost came early this year; and by the second week in December the ponds and shallows in the neighborhood of North Aston were covered with ice that made good sliding-grounds for the children.  Presently it grew and spread till the deeper waters were frozen over, and a skating-rink was formed of the Broad that bore the heavier weights without danger.  It was a merry time for the North Astonians; and even the elder men strapped on their skates and took colds and contusions in their endeavors to double back on their supple youth and to forget the stiffer facts of time.  As for the young people, they were in the full swing of innocent enjoyment; and the girls wished that the frost would last through the whole of the winter, so that they might make up skating-parties with the boys every day, and avoid the unmeaning deadness of “tender” weather.

This ice had been in perfect condition for three days and the Broad had been thronged, but Leam had not appeared.  All the other young ladies of the country had come, Adelaide Birkett one of the most diligent in her attendance, for was not Edgar Harrowby one of the most constant in his?  But though more than one pair of eyes had looked anxiously along the road that led to Ford House, which some people still continued to call Andalusia Cottage, no lithe, graceful figure had been seen gliding between the frosted hedgerows, and Edgar, like Alick, had skated in disappointment, the former with the feeling of an actor playing to an empty house when he made his finest turns and she was not there to see them; the latter with the self-reproach of one taking enjoyment abroad while the beloved is sitting in solitude and dreariness at home.