Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-04-26

] thunder showers. Again the two girls pic
tured their friend upon the sandy road, this
| time wrapped In her Irish frieze cloak, the
| countrywoman's cloak which she had worn
ever since Rose could remember, and strug-
| Cling against the storm with her stout Bel
| CLAN umbrella Of dark-red cotton. But the
| clock struck three, and the clock struck
| four, the girls waiting through the hour
| with listening ears and beating hearts, and
| there was no touch OF Bridget Ryan's hand
| upon the convent bell.
Then Rose grew desperate, and went
| straight to the Reverend Mother, and asked
permission to write to Bridget, who NUT
| DO Ill, or surely she would have come. The
| superior hesitated a little rules were strict,
| and IL once b~roken-and so on and so on.
| But the pale anxious face and fearful eyes
! touched her, and she gave .he required per-
| mission and the necessary postage-stamp.
Three DAYS Rose and Kathleen waited
anxiously for the reply 70 their letter, and
| then came a formal epistle from alawyer in
| Brtiges, who had the honor to acquaint the
yonng ladies that their late fathers old SER
yant Madame Ryan, had died at midnight
on the last Saturday In June, after a very
| short illness, and that she had bequeathed
the whole OF her savings TO MademoIselle
Rose 0'Hars, said savings amounting, after
paymen OF funeral expenses, 10 FIVE hun
dred and fifty francs.
Deep and bitter was the grief of the sis
ters at the loss Of this faithful friend-the
| only friend whose warm motherly
love Kathleen had ever known. Rose gave
| a hundred francs 20 the Reverend Mother 10
be spent In masses for the beloved dead.
| Kathleen wanted her to devote all the
money to that sacred purpose.
what do we want with the poor darling's
money!" she asked.
Nothing now, DEAR" answered the more
experienced elder sister; but the day may
come when o little money will save us from
! a good deal of misery"
Inc day came wIen those rev goio pieces,
which Rose kept under lock and key with
all her little treasures In a small tapanned
box that had belonged to her father, made
the two girls independent of tyranny, or OF
that which seemed 10 them as tyranny of
an altogether unbearable kind.
The good Reverend Mother, under whose
firm but friendly rule Rose and Kathleen
had grown up, one to q tall weH-deveIoped
girl OF eighteen. the other 10 q slim sapllDg
or eleven, was transferred to a larger ana
Weather convent, and was replaced by q
Sour-visaged nun whose piety was OF the
gloomy order, and who wanted to rule the
community with a rod Of iron. Everything
was changed under her dominion, every
rule made more severe, every little innocent
pleasure curtailed OF forbidden. A dark
pail cal down upon the convent, and dis
content brooded like an evil presence by the
hearth.
Kathleen, in high health, active, full Of
life and s. irits, was one Of the first TO break
| the new rules. Her gaiety was misconduct,
her fresh ringing laugh mn offence. She
was continually getting into disgrace; and
Rose, who saw her punished by all sorts OF
small priyatlons and by the burd n OF extra
tasks, rebelled in her heart against the
! tyrant. although she urged her young sister
to submission and obedience.
There came a day-a bright summer day
when the punishment lesson was heavier
| than usual, although Katnieen'S offence had
been of the slightest kind.
Kathleen O'Hara has an obstinate tenn
per, and IL must be conquered" said the
| reverend mother, when she was told Of a
| blotted exercise or q little outbreak OF tenn
per.
To-day Kathleen had q headach She
was flushed and feverish, overcome by the
midsummer heat. Just . year had gone
since Bridgets death, and 1t seemed to both
girls as il that year had been the longest in
| their lives--the longest and most unhappy.
The child made a feeble effort 10 write the
German exercise which had been given TO
her as q punishment task; but 500 gave up
altogether, and sat crying, with tho book
| open before her, and the sun pouring its
fierce light upon her flushed, tear-stained
face.