On the afternoon of the twenty-third day of December the novice was kneeling in her cell, supposedly at prayer, in reality indulging in a rather forlorn and melancholy reverie. It was the hour of recreation; and the convent was very quiet, for most of the nuns were sleeping, in preparation for the strain of the forty-eight-hour Christmas service. The stillness brought a chill to Laure’s heart, and she was near to tears, when her door was suddenly pushed open, and some one halted there. Laure turned quickly enough to see the white-robed Prioress disappear, closing the door behind a figure that remained motionless inside the threshold. “My mother!” cried Laure, springing to her feet. “Laure,” was the quivering response, as Eleanore held out her arms. The dreamer, suddenly become a little child, went into the mother-clasp, her pristine home, and was half carried over to the only seat in the room,—a wooden tabouret, large enough for only one. Upon this Eleanore seated herself, while Laure sank to the floor beside her, huddling close to the human warmth of her mother, her head lying in that mother’s lap, both hands held tightly in the larger, stronger, older ones. “Laure—my Laure—my little Laure!” was all that, at this time, madame could force her lips to say. And hearing it, the girl, suddenly overwrought and overswept with repressed yearning for home love, all at once burst into a convulsive flood of tears. Some moments passed, and the sobs, instead of diminishing, began to increase in violence, till Eleanore became alarmed. Certain unexpressed fears took possession of her. She made no effort to bring them into definite order in her mind. They merely joined themselves to a shadow that had long since come upon her in the form of a question: What, in bare reality, was this vast monster called “the Church”? Why had it a right to step thus between mother and child? How could such a thing be called holy? Filled with this idea, and realizing to the full how desperately short was her chance, Eleanore set herself to work, through every means known to her, to quiet Laure, to stop her tears, and to gain her earnest attention. Under madame’s determined calm, it was not long before Laure was brought back to self-control. And when she was quiet, the mother, sitting very straight in her place, drew the girl to her feet, and, holding her fast by the hand, while she looked steadily into the clear, brown eyes, she asked, slowly, with an emphasis born of her desperation,— “Laure, is it indeed in thy heart to remain, of thy free will and desire, forever in this house, forsaking all that was dear to thee of youth and love, and freedom, in thy home, Le Crépuscule?”