Mrs. Carew had returned to the city, and now and then Mr. Palma mentioned her name, and delivered messages from her to his stepmother; but Olga abstained from her old badinage, and Regina imagined that her forbearance sprang from a knowledge of the engagement which she supposed must exist between them.  She could not hear her name without a shiver of pain, and longed to get away before the affair assumed a sufficiently decided form to compel her to notice and discuss it.  To-day, after watching her for some time, Olga said: 

“You are weary, and pale almost to ghastliness.  Put away your books, and come talk to me.”

Regina sighed, laid down her pen, and came to the fireplace.

“I thought you promised to go very early to Mrs. St. Clare’s and assist Valeria in arranging her bridal veil?”

“So I did, and it will soon be time for me to dress.  How I dislike to go back into the gay world, where I have frisked so recklessly and so long.  Do you know I long for the hour when I shall end this masquerade, and exchange silks and lace and jewellery for coarse blue gown, blue apron, and white cap?”

“Do you imagine the colour of your garments will change the complexion of your heart and mind?  You remind me of Alexander’s comment upon Antipater:  ’Outwardly Antipater wears only white clothes, but within he is all purple.’”

“Ah! but my purple pride has been utterly dethroned, and it seems to me now that when I find rest in cloistered duties the quiet sacred seclusion will prove in some degree like the well Zem-Zem, in which Gabriel washed Mohammed’s heart, filled it with faith, and restored it to his bosom.  Until I am housed safely from the roar and gibes and mockery of the world, I shall not grow better; for here

’God sends me back my prayers, as a father
Returns unoped the letters of a son
Who has dishonoured him.’

“To conquer the world is nobler than to shun it, and to a nature such as yours, Olga, other lines in that poem ought to appeal with peculiar force: 

’If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
And with a calm brow front the solemn stars—­
A brave soul is a thing which all things serve.’”

The scheme which you are revolving now is one utterly antagonistic to the wishes of your mother, and God would not bless a step which involved the sacrifice of your duty to her.”

“After a time mamma will approve; till then I shall be patient.  She has consented for me to go to the Mother House at Kaiserswerth, and to some of the Deaconess establishments in Paris and Dresden, in order that I may become thoroughly acquainted with the esoteric working of the system.  I am anxious also to visit the institution for training nurses at Liverpool, and unless we sail directly for Havre, we shall soon have an opportunity of gratifying my wishes.”