"You are not happy, Theresa!" continued the sister; "I know too much of woman's life to believe you are. I am aware of the motives from which you act; and while I reverence your purity of heart, and the pride which has tempted you to work out your own destiny, I easily trace the weariness your spirit feels. I, too, have had my visions; they are God's gift to youth, but I have lived sadly and patiently to watch dream after dream fade away. I see you have forgotten me, although I saw you frequently at the convent of ----; but I am not surprised at your forgetfulness, for the nun's sombre veil shuts her out alike from hearts and memories." "Are you, too, then unhappy?" asked Theresa, as the low and musical voice beside her trembled in its tone; "you, whose footsteps are followed by blessings, whose life is hallowed by doing good? I have long ago learned to doubt the peace of the cloister, but I have ever loved to believe there was recompense in your more active career, and that if happiness exists on earth, the Sisters of Charity deserve and win it." "In part, you are right," answered the nun, "but you have yet to realize that the penalties of humanity are beyond mortal control; that we cannot, by any mode of life, pass beyond their influence. All we _can_ do, is prayerfully to acquire patient forbearance and upward hope; many a heavy heart beats beneath a veil like this, and carries its own woes silently within, while it whispers to others of promise and rest." The visiter paused, and Theresa interrupted a silence that began to be painful to both. "I feel," she said, "that I have acted injudiciously in braving remark, and in proudly dreaming I could shape out my own course. But you, who seem to have divined my thoughts so truly, doubtless read also the _one_ reason which renders my return home most depressing." "I know it well," was the reply; and the speaker pressed Theresa's trembling hand within her own, "but your prolonged stay here will be fraught with continually increasing evils; and if you expect repose, it cannot be here, where envy and detraction are rising against you. We cannot sway the prejudices of society, Theresa; and in some respects even the most gifted must submit to their decrees. And now," she said, as she rose to take leave, "I must bid you farewell. I have followed an impulse of kindness in undertaking the dangerous task to warn and counsel. If you will listen to one fatally versed in the world's ways, you will cease to defy public opinion, and amid the more tranquil scenes of your home, you will acquire a truer repose than ever fame bestowed. In all probability we shall meet no more, yet I would fain carry with me the consolation of having rescued from confirmed bitterness of spirit, the child of a faithful friend, and pointed a yearning heart to its only rest." And before Theresa could reply, the door had closed, and the visiter was gone. THERESA'S LETTER.