“And Laure, Reverend Mother,—how fares my child? Is she content with you?” Eleanore’s heart throbbed with unconfessed hope as she asked this question. For if Laure was _not_ content, she might return at will to the Castle, her home, and her mother’s heart. But the Prioress returned Eleanore’s look with a smile of satisfaction. “In a moment Laure will come hither. I have sent for her. Then thou shalt learn from her own lips how well her life goes. Never, I think, hath our priory received a new daughter that showed herself so happy in her vocation. We shall call her name Angelique at her consecration.” Eleanore felt her body grow cold, and her head swim. Her face, however, betrayed nothing. Her little girl, then, was really gone! Laure, the wild bird, was tamable. She—_could_ she become “Angelique”? Neither madame nor the Prioress spoke again till there was a sound of gentle footsteps in the corridor, followed by a light tap on the wooden door of the cell. “Enter!” cried the Prioress; and Laure came quietly in. First of all she bowed to Mère Piteuse. Then, as Eleanore involuntarily held out her arms, the girl went into them, and kissed her mother with a warmth and a sweetness that perhaps Eleanore had not known from her before. At the same moment the Prioress rose quietly, and left the room. The instant that she was gone, Eleanore seized the girl in a still closer embrace, and held her tightly and more tightly to her breast. “Laure, my darling! Laure, my sweet child! how hath my heart yearned for thee! How hath thy name lain ever on my lips while I slept, and been enshrined in my heart by day!” The young girl’s arms wound themselves about her mother’s neck, and she laid her head upon that shoulder where it had been wont to rest in her babyhood. And Laure sighed a little, not unhappily, but like a child tired of play. “Laure, wilt thou remain here in the convent? Art thou happy? Dost thou wish it, or wilt thou come home again to Crépuscule?” A sudden image of the gray Castle, with its vast hall, and the great fire blazing in the chimney-place within, and all the well-known figures assembled there for a meal,—Alixe, Gerault, the demoiselles and young squires headed by Courtoise, and the burly men-at-arms that had played with her and carried her about as a little child,—all the long-familiar, comfortable scenes of her old life came before the girl’s eye. And then—then she drew a little breath and answered her mother, unfaltering: “’Tis beautiful here, and sweet and holy withal. I am content, dear mother. I will remain.” “And hast thou, then, the vocation in thy heart, whereby some souls are claimed of God from birth to death, and find the utmost of their happiness in His communion?” Laure’s great eyes fixed themselves upon the mother’s sad face as she replied again, very softly: “Yea, my mother. That, from my heart, do I believe.”