Wine was not the proper drink for Salome, in her flushed and feverish condition.  But she was both faint and thirsty, and the wine, mixed with water, seemed cool and refreshing, and she quaffed it eagerly.

But she refused the biscuits, declaring that she could not swallow.  And so she thanked her kind friends for their attention, and sank back on her pillow and closed her eyes, as if she would go to sleep.

The sisters promised to bring the mother abbess to her bedside as soon as the matins should be over.  And so they left her to repose, and went silently away to the chapel to take their accustomed places, and join, even at the “eleventh hour,” in the morning worship.

But did Salome sleep?

Ah! no.  She lay upon that cot-bed with her hands covering her eyes, as if to shut out all the earth.  She might shut out all the visible creation, but she could not exclude the haunting images that filled her mind.  She could not banish the forms and faces that floated before her inner vision—­the most venerable face of her dear, lost father, the noble face of her once beloved—­ah! still too well beloved Arondelle!

The music of the matin hymns softened by distance, floated into her room, but failed to soothe her to repose.

At length the sweet sounds ceased.

And then—­

The abbess entered the cell so softly that Salome, lying with closed eyes on the cot, remained unconscious of the presence standing beside her, looking down upon her form.

The abbess was a tall, fair, blue-eyed woman, upon whose serene brow the seal of eternal peace seemed set.  She was about fifty years of age, but her clear eyes and smooth skin showed how tranquilly these years had passed.  She was clothed in the well-known garb of her order—­in a black dress, with long, hanging sleeves, and a long, black vail.  Her face was framed in with the usual white linen bands, her robe confined at the waist by a girdle, from which hung her rosary of agates; and her silver cross hung from her neck.

The abbess was a lady of the most noble birth, connected with the royal house of Orleans.

In the revolution which had driven Louis Philippe from the throne, her father and her brother had perished.  Her mother had passed away long before.  She remained in the convent of St. Rosalie, where she was being educated.

And when, early in the days of the Second Empire, her fortune was restored to her, instead of leaving the cloister, where she had found peace, for the world, where she had found only tribulation, she took the vail and the vows that bound her to the convent forever, and devoted her means to enriching and enlarging the house.  The convent had always supported itself by its celebrated academy for young ladies.  It had also maintained a free school for poor children.  But now the heiress of the noble house of de Crespignie added a Home for Aged Women, an asylum for Orphan Girls and Nursery for Deserted Infants.  And all these were placed under the charge of the Sisters of Mercy.