“I durst not trust myself to speak; my heart was too full.  At last I said, ’Dear sister, do not grieve thus; our Blessed Lady will intercede for you.  Remember, in coming here your purpose, even as mine, was to make reparation for sin.  You and I have both suffered.  Be brave now, dear, and now that the end is near do not take away from God’s glory by fearing for the future.’

“’I know it is wrong to grieve so much, Sister Magdalene Adelaide, but oh, I am so weak!  Will you read a meditation for me?’

“I took up the book and did as she requested.  Soon she fell into a sleep which lasted about one hour, and again I commenced saying my rosary beads.  Presently I heard her murmur, and, listening, I heard her whisper, ‘My feet! oh, my feet!’ I arose from my chair and removed the sheet with the intention of rubbing her limbs; as I did so her feet were disclosed.  A thrill of horror passed through my being as I looked at them, for they were all cut, festered and bruised; a fearful suspicion took possession of me, and, stooping down, I picked up her infirmary shoes.  On examination I discovered in them pieces of broken glass; a thrill akin to horror ran through my whole frame.  I held the shoes in my hands and looked at the pale, suffering face of Adeline as she lay there on her bed, and this evening the whole scene rises before me—­the little infirmary with its clean, white floor, a few cheap prints of the stations of the cross hanging on the otherwise bare walls, the two or three small iron bedsteads, then the white wooden altar upon which was spread a white linen cloth embroidered with red; the two statues, one of ’Our Lady of Dolours’ and the second of St. Joseph, the patron of happy deaths.  In the center of the altar was a vase with a few cheap paper flowers.

“Yes, it comes to me most vividly.  There she lay, the sin of her past life being that she, too, had been deceived at the altars of Rome—­a victim of priestly solicitation in the confessional.  Even as she lay there in the last stages of consumption, traces of what had at one time been a beautiful face were clearly discernible.  What had she not suffered for years!  Who could tell the many weary hours of heart anguish she had passed through?  And yet she was young—­hardly twenty-five years old.  She had given up all that was near and dear, and, for the years she had lived in the convent, she had tried to appease God’s justice for her early sin by mortifying and chastising herself in a way that can only find a parallel in the doctrines of Buddha.  Oh, Madeline! poor, wounded, betrayed one!  Who can wonder, as you lay there with the fever of consumption running and coursing through your veins, that, in spite of all the teachings and practices of self-denial in the convent life in which you had lived so many years, yet, when the hour of death drew nigh and your soul was hovering on the borders of the unknown eternity, your thoughts once more went back to the old home-scenes, and you longed,