She was quite broken and really ill with neuralgia and exhaustion, unable to attend the funeral, which the Merrifields wished to have at Stokesley, and unfit for anything but lying still with the pink parrot on the rail below, kindly watched over by good Marilda. The strain of many disturbed nights, the perplexities, the struggle for resignation, all coming after a succession of trying events in Australia, had told heavily upon her. Indeed, no one guessed how much she had undergone, physically as well as spiritually, till Marilda would not be denied the consulting Dr. Brownlow, who questioned her closely, and extorted confessions of the long continued strain of exertion. Rest was all she needed; and Marilda took care that she had it, bringing Robina up from Minsterham to make it more effectual, and letting her have visits from her Bishop and from Bernard as they could afford the time, both being very and variously busy. Angela had made up her mind to go out to Australia again, and to make Carrigaboola an endowment for the Sisterhood; but the means of doing this could best be arranged there, and she intended to go out when her Bishop should return in the autumn, feeling that her vocation was there, though there was a blank in all she had most cared for on earth in that home. As soon as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there. Remembering her old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt and spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the Sisters who surrounded her it was more as if they were receiving a saint. When she came back to Vale Leston, she had recovered cheerfulness, more equable than it had ever been, and Cherry and Alda found her a charming companion. There was much going on at Vale Leston just then. Miss Arthuret and Dolores were at Penbeacon, seriously considering of the scheme of converting the old farm house into a kind of place of study for girls who wanted to work at various technicalities, and to fit themselves for usefulness or for self-maintenance. There was to be more or less of the Convalescent Home or House of Rest in combination, and it had occurred to Dolores that there could hardly be a better head of such an establishment than Magdalen Prescott. Magdalen had been asked to the Priory to meet Angela, to whom it was now a comfort and pleasure to talk of her treasure, so much less lost to her than in the uncongenial surroundings threatened at Coalham. And the invitation, followed by the proposal, came at a not unpropitious moment. A railway company, after much surveying, much disputing, and many heartburnings, were actually obtaining an Act of Parliament, empowering it to lay its cruel hands upon the Goyle, running its viaducts down the ravine of Arnscombe, and destroy all the peace and privacy! It did much, as Agatha had said, to make the new scheme of Penbeacon acceptable though.