When I reached Arden I took one of the melancholy vehicles which stand at our station, and very much astonished the driver by ordering him to take me, not to my own home, but to the House of Martha.

"You know they\'re busted up, sir," said the man, turning to me, as his old horse hurried us along at the best of his speed.

"But the sisters have not left?" I eagerly asked.

"Not all," he said, "but two or three of them went down this morning."

"Drive on quicker," I replied, "I am in a hurry."

The man gave the horse a crack with his whip, which made no difference whatever in our rate of speed, and said:—

"If you\'ve got a bill agin any of them, sir, you needn\'t worry. The Mother is still there, and she\'s all right, you know."

"Bill? Nonsense!" said I.

"I\'m sorry they\'re busted," said the man; "they didn\'t do much hackin\', but they give us a lot of haulin\' from the station."

As I hurried up the broad path which led to the front of the House of Martha, I found the door of the main entrance open, something I had never noticed before, although I had often passed the house. I entered unceremoniously, and saw before me, in the hallway, a woman in gray, stooping over a trunk. She turned, at the sound of my footsteps on the bare floor, and I beheld Sister Sarah. Her eyes flashed as she saw me, and I know that her first impulse was to order me out of the house. This of course she now had no right to do, but there were private rights which she still maintained.

"I should think," she said, "that a man who has done all the mischief that you have done, who has worked and planned and plotted and contrived, until he has undermined and utterly ruined the sisterhood of pious women who ask nothing of this world but to be let alone to do their own work in their own way, would be ashamed to put his nose into this house; but I suppose a man who would do what you have done does not know what shame is. Have you come here to sneer and jibe and scorn and mock, and gloat over the misfortunes of the women whose home you have broken up, ruined, and devastated?"

"Madam," said I, "can you tell me where I can find Miss Sylvia Raynor?"

She looked as if she were about to spring and bite.

"Atrocious!" she exclaimed. "I will not stay under the same roof,"—and she marched out of the door.

I made my way into the reception room. I met no one, and the room was empty, although I heard on the floor above the sound of many footsteps, apparently those of the sisters preparing for departure.

I looked around for a bell, or some means of making my presence known. The room appeared harder, barer, emptier than when I had seen it before. In a moment it was filled with all the light and beauty of the world. A door opened, and Sylvia entered.

"I saw you come," she said, advancing with outstretched hands, "and hurried down as soon as I could."

She was in her gray dress, but without shawl or head covering. Her face was filled with the most charming welcome. I hastened towards her. I did not take her hands, but opening my arms I folded her in them, and kissed her over and over again. With flushed face she pushed herself a little from me.

"Isn\'t this taking a great deal for granted?" she said.

"Granted!" I exclaimed, "think of what has been denied. Think of the weeks, the months"—

"We would a great deal better think somebody may come in here and see us," said Sylvia, pushing herself still farther from me.

"But didn\'t you expect me to rush to you the instant I heard you were a free woman? Did you suppose there was anything to be taken for granted between us?"

"Oh no," she said, "I think we understood each other pretty well, but then, don\'t you see, I didn\'t suppose it would be like this. I am expecting a trunk from New York every minute, and I thought when it came I should be dressed like other people. Now that I am not a sister, I did not want you to see me in these dreary clothes. Then I would go to my mother\'s house, and I thought you would call on me there, and things would go on more regularly; but you are so impetuous."

"My dearest love," said I, "it fills me with rapture to take you in my arms in the same dress you wo............