Somewhere in the wicked world, Bertie was astray; and perhaps God has kept her alive, intending she should fulfil her mission years hence, by bringing him out of the snares of temptation, back into the fold of Christ’s redeemed.  Five years of penal servitude to ransom his soul; was the price exorbitant?

One dull, wintry afternoon as she pressed close to the window, to catch the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be the chapter in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her; a remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and debased, her suffering fellow prisoners.

Was there no work to be done for the dear Master, in that moral lazaretto—­the long rows of cells down stairs, where some had been consigned for ‘ninety-nine years’?  Hitherto, she had shrunk from contact, as from leprous contagion; meeting the Penitentiary inmates only in the chapel where, since her restoration to health, she went regularly to sing and play on the organ, when the chaplain held service.  The world had cruelly misjudged her; was she any more lenient to those who might be equally innocent?

Next day she went humbly, yet shyly, down to the common work-room, and took her place among the publicans, hoping that the soul of some outcast might be won to repentance.  Now and then messages of sympathy reached her from the outside world, in the form of flowers, books, magazines; and two of the jurors who convicted her, sent from time to time generous contributions of dainty articles that materially promoted her comfort; while a third, whose dead child had clung to her Christmas card, eased his regretful pangs by the gift of a box containing paper, canvas, crayons, brushes, paints, and all requisite appliances for artistic work.

Sister Serena had gone on a labor of love, to a distant State; and faithful Dyce, hopelessly crippled by a fall from the mule which she was forcing across the bridge leading to the State dungeon, had been permanently consigned to the wide rocking chair, beside her cabin hearth at “Elm Bluff”.

It was a bleak night in January, and intensely cold, when Mrs. Singleton wrapped a shawl about her head, and ran along the dark corridor to the cell, where Beryl was walking up and down to keep herself warm.  Only the moonlight illumined it, as the rays fell on the bare floor, making a broad band of silver beneath the window.

“I forgot to tell you, that something very dreadful happened at the ‘Lilacs’ last week.  Judge Dent had a stroke of paralysis and died the same night.  As if that were not trouble enough to last for a while at least, the house took fire in that high wind yesterday, and burned to the ground; leaving poor Miss Patty Dent without a roof to cover her.  She had gone to the cemetery to carry flowers to her brother’s grave, and when she returned, it was too late to save anything.  Miss Gordon’s