“Of course! Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till after the examination! How capital it will be! My father will like your bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older. Will your sister consent?” “Oh! Magdalen will be glad enough to have me off on a career. We will write and prepare her mind. I believe I am not to go home, so as to bring a clean bill of health to St. Robert’s.” “I really think,” added Dolores, “that Magdalen would make an admirable head matron, or whatever you call it!” “Dear old thing! She is very fond of her Goyle.” “True, but Sophy’s engineer husband tells us that a new line is projected to Rock Quay, through the very heart of the Goyle, Act of Parliament, compulsory sale and all.” “Well! work might console her for being uprooted, and she is quite youthful enough to take to it with spirit.” “Besides that she would greatly console Clement and Cherry for the profanation of their Penbeacon. I declare I will suggest it to Arthurine!” So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was “winds have rent thy sheltering bowers.” CHAPTER XXVII—A SENTENCE “What should we give for our beloved?” —E. B. BROWNING. NO sooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine appeared at Vale Leston. Angela was anxious to spend a little time there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May. The child had never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam’s Peak, Lena lay back in Sister Angela’s arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben looking happy in his cage. Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms that others made light of. Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the doctor’s opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow; while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria. Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made Elizabeth pause. “That’s the way they go on!” said Phyllis. “All day long Angela is reading to the child either the ‘Water Babies’ or the history of Joseph.”