“Won’t you please let me bury Bunnie and Snowball before I go upstairs to penance?  I can dig a grave in the corner of my little garden and plant verbena and cypress vine over it.”

She shivered as if the thought had chilled her heart, and her voice trembled, while she pressed the stiffened forms to her, breast.

“Come along as fast as you can, dear, you are wanted in the parlour.  I believe you are going away.”

“Oh! has my mother come?”

“I don’t know, but I am afraid you will leave us.”

“Will you be sorry, Sister Angela?”

“Very sorry, dear child, for we love our little girl too well to give her up willingly.”

Regina paused and pressed her lips to the cold white fingers that clasped hers, but Sister Angela hurried her on till she reached a door opening into the Mother’s reception-room.  Catching the child to her heart, she kissed her twice, lifted the dead darlings from her apron, and, pushing her gently into the small parlour, closed the door.

It was a cool, lofty, dimly lighted room, where the glare of sunshine never entered, and several seconds elapsed before Regina could distinguish any object.  At one end a wooden lattice work enclosed a space about ten feet square, and here Mother Aloysius held audience with visitors whom friendship or business brought to the convent.  Regina’s eager survey showed her only a gentleman, sitting close to the grating, and an expression of keen disappointment swept over her countenance, which had been a moment before eloquent with expectation of meeting her mother.

“Come here, Regina, and speak to Mr. Palma,” said the soft, velvet voice behind the lattice.

The visitor turned around, rose, and watched the slowly advancing figure.

She was dressed in blue muslin, the front of which was concealed by her white bib-apron, and her abundant glossy hair was brushed straight back from her brow, confined at the top of her head by a blue ribbon, and thence fell in shining waves below her waist.  One hand hung listlessly at her side, the other clasped the drooping lily and held it against her heart.

The slightly curious expression of the stranger gave place to astonishment and involuntary admiration as he critically inspected the face and form; and, fixing her clear, earnest eyes on him, Regina saw a tall, commanding man of certainly not less than thirty years, with a noble massive head, calm pale features almost stern when in repose, and remarkably brilliant piercing black eyes, that were doubtless somewhat magnified by the delicate steel-rimmed spectacles he habitually wore.  His closely cut hair clustered in short thick waves about his prominent forehead, which in pallid smoothness resembled a slab of marble, and where a slight depression usually marks the temples his swelled boldly out, rounding the entire outline of the splendidly developed brow.  He wore neither moustache nor beard, and every line of his handsome mouth and finely modelled chin indicated the unbending tenacity of purpose and imperial pride which had made him a ruler even in his cradle, and almost a dictator in later years.