The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-06-04

tight. Heaven above sind there'1 be no
wind! Oh, why wasn't his ugly rooms
at the back, where tits only yards am
bedroom windows!"
The voice grew fainter and stopped.
Sister Ursula was at the level of the first
floor windows when the two children
caught sight OF her, raising together
shrill shout. The devil that delights in
torturing good nuns inspired them next
to separate and run the one up and the
other down the avenue, yelling: "O-ohl
There a nun up the fire escaped A nun
on the fire escape!' And, since one word
at least was familiar, a score of heads
came to windows in the avenue, and were
much interested.
In spite of her prayers. Sister Ursula
was not happy. The medicine bottle
banged and bumped in her pocket as she
gripped the iron bars hand over hand and
toiled aloft. sit is for the sake OF life,'
she painted to herself. sit is a good
work. He might die if I did not come.
All it is terrible.' A fake of rust from
the long disused irons had fallen on her
nose. The rungs were chafing her hands
and the minutes were flying. The round,
red face of the caretaker's wife grew
smaller below her, and there was a rum
bling of wheels in the avenue. An idle
coachman, drawn by the shouts Of the
children, had turned the corner to see
what was to be seen. And Sister Ursula
climbed in agony of spirit, the heelless
black cloth shoes that nuns wear slipping
on the rungs of the ladder, and all earth
reeling hundred thousand feet below.
She passed one set OF apartments, and
they were empty of people, but the fire,
the books on the table, and the child s
toy cast on the hearthrug showed it was
deserted only for a minute. Sister
Ursula drew breath on the balcony and
then hurried upward. There was iron
rusted red on both her hands, the front of
her gown was speckled with it, and re-
Election in the stately double window
showed a stainless stiff fold of her head
gear battered down over her eye. Her
shoe, yes, the mended one, had burst at
the side near the toe in generous bulge
of white stocking. She climbed on
YEARLY, for the bottle was swinging
again, and in her ears there came unbid-
den the nursery refrain that she used to
sing to the little sick children in the
hospital at Quebec:
This is the COW with the crumpled horn.
Between earth and heaven, it is said,
the soul on its upward Journey must
pass the buffeting of many evil spirits.
There flashed into Sister Ursula's mind
the remembrance of picture of man
gazing from the leads down the side of a
ening that made one dizzy to see. Where
had she seen that picture? Memory,
that works indifferently on earth or in
vacuo, told her of book read by stealth
in her novitiate, such book as perils
body and soul, and Sister Ursula blushed
redder than the brickwork foot before
her nose. Everything, that she had
read in or thought about that book,
raced through her mind, as all his past
ifn nf orb ho 1f
drowning man. 1t was horrible, most
horrible. Then rose fierce wave of
rage and Indignation that she, a sister
of irreproachable life and demeanor 1.-THE
book had been an iDdiscretion, long since
bitterly repented of, should be singled
out for these humiliating exercises. There
were other nuns OF her acquaintance.
proud, naughty and overbearing cher
foot slipped here as a reminder against
sin and hasty judgments, and she felt
that it was small and niggling justice
that counted offences al such a crisisl.
aud-and thinking too much of their holt
ness, to whom this modification, with
all the rust fakes in bosom and kerchief.
would have ceen salutary and wholesome
But that she, Sister Ursula, who only de-
sired a quiet life, should climb fire escapes
in the face of the shameless sun and a
watching population? 1t was too terri
BILE. None the less she did not come
down.
praying to be delivered from evil
thoughts, praying that the swinging
bottle would not smash itself against the
iron ladders, she toiled on. The second
and third fats were empty, and she heard
a murmur in the street; a hum OF en-
couraging tumult, cheerful outcries
bidding her go up higher, and crisp en-
quiries as to whether this were the end
of the performance. Her saint-she
that had not prevailed against the nuns
would not help Sister Ursula, and it
came over her, as cold water slides
down the spine, that at her journeys
end she would have togo through
the window. There is no vestibule, por-
tico, or robing-room at the upper end of
a ire-escape. It is designed Tor such as
move in hurry, unstudious OF the
graces, being for the most part not over
dressed, and yet seeking publicity-that
publicity which came to Sister Ursula
unsought. She must go through that
window In order to give her invalid his
medicine. Her head must go first. and
her feet, and the burst shoe must go
last. 1t was the very breaking point in
the strain, and here her saint, mistaking