In the half hour during which I remained alone upon the bluff, awaiting the return of Walkirk and the fishing party, I thought as much of the lady with whom I had been talking as the lady of whom I had been talking.

"How is it possible," I asked myself, "that this gentlewoman, warm with her rich blooded beauty, alive with ripe youth, born to delight the soul of man and fire his heart, should content herself to be a head nurse in a hospital; to wander in an unsightly disguise among dismal sick-beds; to direct the management of measles-refuges; to shut herself up in a bare-floored, cold-walled institution with narrow-minded Sister Sarahs; to be, in a word, the Mother Superior of the House of Martha?"

That she should occupy this position seemed to me a crime. There were many women in the world who could do all she was doing, but there were few who could take her place in the world of full, true life.

When the fishing party returned, I went to the house to take leave of our new friends.

"You must go?" said the Sand Lady. "And where, may I ask, is it imperative that you should go?"

"To the island where you have so kindly allowed us to sojourn," I replied.

"You sleep in the cabin of your boat, I believe?" she said; and I answered that we did.

"Very well, then," continued she, "why not bring your floating home to this island? It is in every way better than that. I will give you exclusive rights over a little bay and an adjoining dell. There you can cook your own meals when you like, or you can come to us when you like; we always have more than enough for all who inhabit this island. In the evening you can sit alone on the beach and think of the far-away loved one, or you can come up to the house and play whist or twenty questions. The Understudy can go fishing with my brother; they suit each other admirably. What do you say?"

"I say, madam," I replied, with a bow, "the sands of which you are the lady are the dust of diamonds, and your invitation is a golden joy."

"Bless me," she exclaimed, "what must you be out of check!"

That evening we sailed to Racket Island, brought away our belongings, and established ourselves in the land-locked little bay, about a quarter of a mile from the house of the Sand Lady.

Early the next morning I walked around to a pier where I had noticed a good-sized yacht was moored. It was still there; apparently no one had left the island. After our breakfast on the beach I told Walkirk to devote himself to independent occupations, and walked up to the house. I found the lady who had called herself a Person and the one of whom I did not like to think as an Interpolation sitting together upon the piazza. I joined them.

"Wouldn\'t you be very much obliged to me," asked the Person, after a scattering conversation, in which I suppose I appeared as but a perfunctory performer, "if I were to go away and leave you alone with this lady?"

"As this is an island of plain speaking," I replied, "I will say, yes."

Both ladies laughed, and the Person retired to her hammock.

"Now, then," asked Mother Anastasia, "what is the meaning of this alarming frankness?"

"I wish to talk to you of Sylvia," I answered.

"If you imagine," she said, "that I intend to spend the short time I shall remain upon this island in talking of Sylvia, you are very much mistaken."

"Then let us talk of yourself," I replied.

She turned upon me with a frown and a laugh.

"If I had known," she said, "your habits of ingenuousness and candor, I should have made you dictate to Sylvia through a speaking-tube. You have known me less than a day. You have known her for a month. Can it be possible that you talk to her as freely as you talk to me?"

"Madam," I exclaimed, "I love Sylvia, and therefore could not speak freely to her."

"Your distinctions are wonderfully clear-cut," she said; "but why do you wish to talk of me? I suppose you want to know why I am Mother Superior of the House of Martha?"

"Yes," I answered, "that is a thing I cannot understand; but of course I should not feel justified in even alluding to it if, yesterday, you had not so kindly given me your confidence in regard to yourself and Sylvia."

"It seems to me," she remarked, "that, as you decline to recognize the name given to that young woman by our institution, you should ca............