Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-10-05
THE RED FLAG.
CONTINUED.

Lie went GIL lluS WIN OlSulal
monotony for five long years; till it
seemed to the sisters as if they could
never have known any world outside
those cOnyent-WaAlS, any horizon be-
yond that western line Of level ma yh
and meadow, where they used to watch
the sun going down in a golden bed
behind the tall black populars. To
Kathleen it seemed as if the old sweet
life, with father and nurse, must have
been q dream. One bitter grief had
come to them in the last year. The
good faithful Biddy was dead. 1t had
been her custom to visit them on the
last Saturday in every mOn,A for an
hour in the afternoon, by special per-
mission of the Superior; and neither
storm nor rain, snow nor hail, had ever
kept Biddy away. Her visit was a
bright spot in the lives of me girls.
They chung to her and loved her in
that too brief hour as if she had been
verify their mother. The vulgar Irish
face, the hands hardened by toll, the
coarse common clothes, were, to them,
as dear as if she had been the finest
laden with fruit and cakes, and she
brought them bright-colored neck rib
bons to enliven their sombre black uni
form. She told them her scraps of
news about the outside world. She
walked with them in the garden or sat
with them in the visitors parlor, and
they were utterly happy so long as she
stayed.
At last, after they had been four
years and a half in the convent came
one never to be forgotten Saturday on
which there was no visitor for the
DemoiselleS O'Hara. 1T was a peer
less June day, and the girls had pictur-
ed Biddy as she walked along the
sandy road from Bruges, where she
had hardish place as maid-of- all-work
in a Flemish tradesman's family. They
fancied how she would enjoy the sun
shine, and the hedges all in flower, and
the song of the lark. If they could but
be with her, thought Kathleen, dancing
along beside her, gathering the wild
flowers! But bark! there was the con-
vent clock striking three. In another
harsh bell, which sounded so sweet up
on that one particular afternoon. Biddy
was the soul of punctuality. The clock
had seldom finished striking before the
bell rang. The girls were sitting in the
garden, as near the gateway and the
pOrter's lodge as they were allowed to
go. They waited and waited, listen
hn hpl
which never was again to be rung by
that honest hand. At last the clock
struck four, and they knew that all
hope was over for that day. From
three to four was the hour appointed
by authority for Biddy's visit She
would not presume to come after that
hour.
There will be n letter tomorrow,
perhaps" said Rose, with a sigh. Poor
dear Biddy 1t is such an effort for
her to write"
But The days went by, and there was
no letter. The last Saturday in July
came, and there had been no sign or
token from Biddy. The rules of the
convent school were strict, and the girls
were allowed to write to no one eX-
cept relations.
That last Saturday in July was a
dull stormy day, a sullen sultry day,
with heavy thunder showers. Again
the two girls pictured their friend upon
the sandy road, this time wrapped in
her Irish frieze cloak, the country
woman's COAX which she had worn
ever since Rose could remember, and
struggling against the storm with her
stout Belgian umbrella of dark-red
cotton. But the clock struck three,
and the clock struck four, the girls
waiting through the hour with listen
ing 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 must be i'll, or surely she would
have come. The superior hesitated a
little; rules were strict, and if once
Droken-and so on and so on. But the
pale anxious face and fearful eyes
touched her, and she gave the required
permission and the necessary postage
stamp.
Three days Rose and Kathleen wait
ed anXiously for the reply to their let
ter, and then came a formal epistle
from lawyer in Bruges, who had the
honor to acquaint the young ladies
that their late fathers old servant,
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 Mademoisele Rose O'Hara, said
savings amounting, after payment of
funeral expenses, to five hundred and
fifty francs.
Deep and bitter was the grief of the
sisters at the loss Of this faithful
friend-the only woman friend whose
warm motherly love Kathleen had ever
known. Rose gave a hundred francs
to the Reverend Mother to be spent
In masses for the beloved dead. Kath-
leen wanted her to devote all the
money to that sacred purpose.
What do you want with the poor
darling's money!" she asked.
Nothing now, DEAR" answered the
more experienced elder sister; but the
day may come when little money will
save us from a good deal of misery"
The day came when those few gold
pieces, which Rose kept under lock and
key with all her little treasures in a
small japanned box that had belonged
to her father, made the two girls in