“But you have not yet said a word of welcome,” Miss Pembroke replied, trying to speak cheerfully. “Oh! yes, when I saw you come, I welcomed you in my own mind,” she replied, without smiling. Honora waited an instant, but Anita seemed to have nothing to say except the good‐by she had come for. “Our whispering did not disturb your prayers?” she asked, wishing to detain her a little longer. “Oh! no.” She glanced up at Sister Cecilia, as a child, when doubtful and lost, looks into its mother’s face, then dropped her eyes dreamily. “I do not say any prayer but ‘amen.’ Nothing else comes. I kneel down, thinking to repeat, perhaps, the rosary, and I am only silent a while, and then I say amen. It is as well, I suppose.” Honora kissed the child’s thin cheek tenderly. “Good‐by, dear,” she whispered softly. “Say one amen for me to‐night.” She went out into the still and sparkling night, and was driven rapidly homeward. On her way, she passed the prison, and, looking up, saw over the high wall a light shining redly through the long row of grated windows. It was a painful sight, but no longer unendurable. “No prayer but amen,” she repeated. “What does it matter by what road we go, so long as we reach heaven at last; whether it be in peaceful ways, or through sin and suffering?” Another carriage drew up at the gate as she reached home, and Mrs. Gerald descended from it, having just returned from Mrs. Ferrier’s. “Upon my word, young woman!” Annette’s voice called out from a pile of furs in the carriage. “We have been saying our good‐nights in whispers, and hushing the very sleigh‐bells, so as not to disturb your slumbers; and here you are out driving.” Her bright and cheerful voice broke strangely into Honora’s mood. Was there, then, anything in the world to laugh about, anything that could possibly excite a jest? “Good‐night, Mother Gerald!” the young woman added. “Don’t stand there taking cold. And if you do not see Honora in the house to‐night, make up your mind that I have carried her off with me, as I shall try to. Come here, my dear, and give an account of yourself. Where have you been?” As Honora reached the carriage door, young Mrs. Gerald leaned out and caught both her hands. “Come with me to find Lawrence,” she whispered hurriedly. “He has not been home yet, but he will go for you.” Though recoiling from the errand, Miss Pembroke would not refuse it. She stepped into the carriage, and suffered herself to be driven away. It was the first time such a service had ever been demanded of her. “Where is he? Do you know?” she asked. “Oh! yes. He is only playing billiards,” the young wife answered, and a sharp sigh seemed to cut the sentences apart. “It is the first time for a long while, and I want to break it up in the beginning. John went down and told him that his mother was dining with us, but Lawrence paid no attention.”