"When the mission of Demeter was first tendered to me I was eighteen, and, although I had often preferred certain of my playmates to others, I had not known love. The honor of the mission made a great impression, and as it slowly came upon me that I was chosen to make of myself a sacrifice, the beauty of it filled my heart with happiness. It hardly occurred to me possible to refuse the mission; I was absorbed by one single desire--to make myself worthy of it. I thought very little about the sacrifice itself. I had the legend of Eros and Psyche in my mind; one day I should hear heavenly music and be approached as it were by an unknown god. And passing from the pagan to the Christian myth, I saw the Immaculate Conception of Murillo--that of the young maiden at the Prado in Madrid--and I felt lifted into the ecstasy of a mystic motherhood. So until I accepted the mission at the Eleusinian festival I lived in a rapture--the days passing in the studies and ministrations of our novitiate, the nights in dreamless sleep. But once the vows taken and the bridal night fixed, there came upon me a revulsion as it were from the outside and took control of my entire being so as to make me understand what the ancients meant when they described certain persons as 'possessed by an evil spirit.' The thought of the approaching crisis was a pure horror to me. I lost my appetite and sleep; or, if I slept, it was to dream a nightmare. Neither our priest nor priestess could console me, the legend of Eros and Psyche became abominable, the Immaculate Conception absurd, and, believe me, Lydia, nothing but pride kept me to my word. It was a bad pride, the pride that could not look forward to the humiliation of refusing a sacrifice I had once accepted. That pride held me in a vice and accomplished what religion itself would never have accomplished." Iréné paused--and Lydia passed her arm around Iréné's waist as they continued to pace the solitary cloister, whispering "Go on" in Iréné's ear. "You know the rest," continued Iréné. "The unknown god came to me in my terror and converted my terror into love; and as I look back at it now I am struck by two things: One, how unaccountable and unfounded the terror was; the other, how little my pride would have sufficed to overcome it had the terror been enforced by love." Lydia looked at Iréné askance. "I mean," said Iréné, "love for some one else!" A sigh broke from Lydia. This was what she had been waiting for. "And you think," said Lydia, "that a woman should not accept the mission if she already loves?" "I don't _think_ it; I _know_ it!" Lydia felt a burden taken from her--the burden of doubt as well as the burden of sacrifice. But suddenly she remembered that Iréné in advising the refusal of the mission was making a sacrifice of her own love, and she said very low in Iréné's ear: "But, Iréné, it's Chairo----"