Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-11-17
ASTORYOF BLOOD.
DY N. L. pRADDoS.
CHAPTER DISCONTINUED.

Life went on thus with adismal monotony
for five long years; till ii seemed to the sis
ters as IL they could never have known any
world outside those convent-wals, any horl-
,Zon beyond that western line Of level marsh
and meadow, where they used to watch the
sun going down in golden bed behind the
tall black poplars. To Kathleen ii seemed
Us II the old sweet life, with father and
nurse, must have been dream. One bitter
grief had come to them in the last yea.
The good faithful Biddy was dead 1t had
been her custom 10 visit them on the last
Saturday in every month for an hour in the
afternoon, by special permission of the
Superior; and neither storm nor rain, snow
nor hail, had ever kept Biddy away. Her
visit was bright spot in the lives of the
girls. They chung to her and loved her in
that too brief hour as II 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 lady in the land. She came
TO them laden with fruit and cakes, and she
brought them bright-colored neck ribbons
to enliven their sombre black uniform. She
told them her scraps of news about the out
side 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 half in the convent, there came one
never to be forgotten Saturday on which
there was no visitor for the Demoiselles
O'Hara. 1t was peerless June day, and
the girls had pictured Biddy as she walked
along the sandy road from Bruges, where
she had hardish place as maid-of-all-work
IN Flemish bridesmaids family. They
fancied how she would enjoy the sunshine,
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 convent clock striking three.
In another moment the bell would ring, the
loud harsh bell, which sounded so sweetup-
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, listening for the bell which
never rang; 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
Bddy's visit. She would not presume to
come after that hour.
"There will be letter tomorrow, per-
haps," said Rose, with 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 except relations.
That last Saturday in July was dull
stormy day, sullen sultry day, with heavy
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
gian 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 must
b. i'll, or surely she would have come. The
superior hesitated little; rules were strict,
and il once broken-and so on and so on.
But the pale anxious face and fearful eyes
touched her, and she gave the required per-
mission and the necessary postage-stamp.
Three days Rose and Kathleen waited
anxiously for the reply to their letter, and
then came formal epistle from lawyer in
Brugcs, who had the honor to acquaint the
young ladies that their late fathers old SER
want, Madame Ryan, had died at midnight
on the last Saturday in June. after 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 hun
dred and fifty francs.
Deep and bitter was the grief of the sis
tiers at the loss Of this faithful friend-the
only woman friend whose warm motherly
love Kathleen had ever known. Rose gave
n hundred francs TO the Reverend Motherto
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 little money will save us from,
q 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 Independent OF tyranny, or OF
that which seemed TO 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 tall well-developed
girl of eighteen, the other to slim sapling
of eleven, was transferred to larger and
weather. convent, and was replaced by
sour-vsaged nun whose piety was OF the
gloomy order, and who wanted TO rule the
community with rod of iron. Everything
was changed under her dominion, every
rule made more severe, every little innocent
pleasure curtaled or forbidden. A dark
pail came down upon the convent, and dis
content brooded like an evil presence by the
hearth.
Kathleen, in high health, active, full OF
life and spirits, was one of the first to break
the new rules. Her gaiety was misconduct,
her fresh ringing laugh an offence. She
was continually getting into disgrace; and