Mr. Castlemaine stood one morning at the window of his study, looking out on the whitened landscape, for snow covered the ground. The genial weather that came in so early had given place to winter again: not often is spring so changeable as they had it that year. The sad, worn look that might be seen lately on the Master of Greylands' face, though rarely when in company, sat on it now. He pushed his dark hair from his brow with a hasty hand, as some thought, worse than the rest, disturbed him, and a heavy groan escaped his lips. Drowning it with a cough, for at that moment somebody knocked at the study door, he held his breath but did not answer. The knock came again, and he did not know the knock: certainly it was not Miles's. He strode to open the door with a frown. It was an understood thing in the house that this room was sacred to its master. There stood Mary, in her deep mourning. "I have ventured to come to you here, Uncle James," she said, "as I wish to speak with you alone. Can you spare me some minutes?" "Any number to you, Mary. And remember, my dear, that you are always welcome here." He gave her a chair, shut down his bureau and locked it, and took a seat himself. For a moment she paused, and then began in some hesitation. "Uncle James, I have been forming my plans." "Plans?" he echoed. "And I have come to tell them to you before I tell any one else." "Well?" said Mr. Castlemaine, wondering what was coming. "I should like--I must have some occupation in life, you know?" "Occupation? Well?" "And I have not been long in making up my mind what it shall be. I shall join the Sisterhood." "Join the what?" "The Sisters at the Grey Nunnery, uncle." Mr. Castlemaine pushed back his chair in angry astonishment when the sense of the words fully reached him. "The Sisters at the Grey Nunnery!" he indignantly cried. "Join those Grey women who lead such an idle, gossiping, meddling life, that I have no patience when I think of them! Never shall you do that, Mary Ursula!" "It seems to me that you have always mistaken them, uncle," she said; "have done them wrong in your heart; They are noble women, and they are leading a noble life----" "A petty, obscure life," he interrupted. "It is obscure; but in its usefulness and self-sacrifice it must be noble. What would Greylands be without their care?" "A great deal better than with it." "They help the poor, they tend the sick, they teach the young ones; they try to make the fishermen think a little of God. Who would do it if they were not here, uncle? Do you know, I have thought so much of it in the past few days that I long to join them." "This is utter folly!" cried Mr. Castlemaine; and he had never felt so inclined to be angry with his niece. "To join this meddling Sisterhood would be to sacrifice all your future prospects in life." "I have no prospects left to sacrifice," returned Mary. "You know that, Uncle James."