two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that you would not go? Didn't you beg her to let you go to Mademoiselle Maximilienne?" I shook my head and repeated in her own words exactly what the Mother Superior had said to me. She listened without interrupting me. Then she told me to say nothing about it to the other girls. She thought that everything would be all right when M. le Cure came back. Next Sunday, as we were getting into line to go to mass, Madeleine ran into the room like a mad thing. She threw her arms up in the air, cried out, "M. le Cure is dead!" and fell right down across the table near her. Everybody stopped talking, and we all ran to Madeleine, who was screaming and crying. We wanted to know all about it. But she rocked herself up and down on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is dead! he is dead!" I could not think at all. I did not know whether I was sorry or not, and all the time mass was going on, Madeleine's voice sounded in my ears like a bell. There was no walk that day. Even the little girls kept quite quiet. I went to look for Sister Marie-Aimee. She had not been at mass, and I knew from Marie Renaud that she was not ill. I found her in the refectory. She was sitting on her little platform. She was leaning her head sideways on the table, and her arms were hanging down beside her chair. I sat myself down some distance away from her. But when I heard her moaning I began to sob too, hiding my face in my hands. But I did not sob long, and I knew that I was not as sorry as I wanted to be. I tried to cry, but I could not shed a single tear. I was a little bit ashamed of myself because I believed that one ought to cry when somebody died, and I didn't dare uncover my face for fear that Sister Marie-Aimee should think that I was hard hearted. I listened to her crying. Her moaning reminded me of the wind at winter-time in the big fireplace. It went up and down as if she were trying to compose a kind of song. Then her voice stumbled and broke, and ended up in deep trembling notes. A little before dinner-time, Madeleine came into the refectory. She took Sister Marie-Aimee away with her, putting her arm round her, and taking care of her as they walked. In the evening she told us that M. le Cure had died in Rome, and that he would be brought back to be buried with his family. Next day Sister Marie-Aimee looked after us as usual. She didn't cry any more, but she would not let us talk to her. She walked along with her eyes on the ground, and seemed to have forgotten me. I had only one day more, as the Mother Superior had told me I should be fetched next day, for the day after was the feast of St. John. In the evening, at the end of prayers, when Sister Marie-Aimee had said, "Lord, be pitiful to exiles and give your aid to prisoners," she added, in a loud