The white-coiffed nun stood inside the door, waiting for the tall girl who at the words had briskly risen from the first rank of her fellow-pupils. She was older than any there, and her whole _allure_ as she stepped forward betrayed a certain sense of superiority and conscious pride. Silently she followed Madame Marie-Immaculée along the stone-paved and arched passage leading to the broad, shallow stairs, her step as light and noiseless as thistle-down, rhythmed, as it were, to the musical tinkle of her leader’s great rosary. In the vaulted hall below she made a deep obeisance, and passed into the _parloir_, leaving the nun on the threshold, as is the rule. The _parloir_ of the Sacred Heart Convent at Bryn is a cheerful place, and was full of sun-rays that morning. Plants carefully tended showed their green leaves and bright blossoms on the window-sills behind the snowy sheerness of tightly drawn curtains, the old oaken furniture shone with numberless polishings, and a great silver-and-ivory crucifix fastened to the pale-gray wall gleamed benignantly above a jardinière filled with freshly gathered “votive” heathers. Blinking a little in all this brightness after the dimness of the corridor, the girl hesitated a second. “Good morning, Laurence. Don’t you see me?” The voice was prim, exceedingly correct in enunciation, and high-bred in accent. “Oh, is that you, Aunt Elizabeth?” the girl said, coming quietly forward, a cool hand outstretched. “When did you land?” “Two hours ago, at Tréport. And I am here to take you back with me this evening.” This was delivered much in the manner of a pronunciamiento, and the recipient thereof raised her eyebrows nervously. “This evening!” she echoed. “Why so much haste, Aunt Elizabeth, pray?” “Because you have been here four years, which is much longer than we wished you to remain,” the elder lady stated, tartly. “You are eighteen, and, being English, it is high time that you should become reaccustomed to British ways and manners.” A quaint little smile drew up the corners of Laurence’s lips, but her eyes remained serious. She was a singularly beautiful girl, graceful of figure, dainty-featured, and gifted with an alabaster complexion and a wealth of chestnut hair that would have made even a plain woman attractive. “You find me too Frenchified?” she queried, twisting the azure ribbon of her silver medal around her fingers--for she was an “_Enfant de Marie_,” and one of the model pupils of her convent-school. “Ye-es,” hesitated Lady Seton, raising her lorgnette the better to study this “uncomfortable” niece. “Ye-e-s! I am afraid so, but we will soon alter all that!” And she let the lorgnette drop to the very end of its interminable amethyst-and-pearl chain. “You had better get your things ready as quickly as you can, Laurence,” she continued, “for neither your uncle nor the tide is wont to wait, and I shall come back for you at six o’clock sharp.” “You crossed on the _Phyllis_, then?”