The Press., 1894-05-17
SISTER DOLORES.

The good sisters went sorrowfully about their work. They passed from one white cot to another, gently smoothing pillows and giving medicines, but cheer full words they could not speak, for Sister Dolores was dead. She, that saint on earth, the favorite of the community, to be stricken so suddenly! They could scarcely realize it.
 Every once in a while some sorrowing one would take from it's place on the wall the key to the dead house, and tip-toeing the way across the paved court would softly unlock the door and enter it's chilly precincts to gaze in silent prayer on the beloved features. On a marble slab lay the cold form, there to remain till on the morrow the coroner's verdict should allow it's burial with all the forms and ceremo- nials which, if useless to the lifeless clay, still comfort those that mourn.
 Sister Dolores had been stricken down while giving 8 cordial to dying patient. He was 8 murderer, this man. He had shot a woman and then used against him. self the smoking weapon. Still breathing they bore him to the hospital, and as he lay gasping on the cot the good Sister Dolores leant down to give him drink. Suddenly she dropped the glass and with cry fell forward across the bed. When the other nuns reached her the heart had ceased to beat. The patient on the cot
  me-"
 It was nightfall, and within the dead house the chilly air was dark save where one candle dimly tiickered, casting shad- ows on the calm dead face of Sister Dol ores and on the saint-like features of the Mother Superior telling her beads at her side. The rosary reverently recited, the Mother arose from her knees and gazed long at the beautiful features of the dead nun.
 She remembered how ten years before there had been brought to the hospital young woman rescued from drowning. Weary of life and it's burdens she had sought relief in the river depths. Tender nursing brought back her strength, and the charity and self-sacrifice of the white capped nuns made her, too, long for this quiet, helpful, saintly life. She begged to join the community, and told to the sympathetic Mother her sad tale. How, an orphan, she had given her young, trusting heart to the man who had wooed and won her. How grand and good he seemed, and how full of bliss had been the honeymoon. An, rude awaken ing! One day had come one whose claim was before hers; @ woman who by right cast her out and hefore whom the guilty man trembled and paled. ..e.. II am his wife," the woman had said, and he had not dared deny. Lucille fled, half crazed, and sought to die. "I love him still, cannot help that, and forgive. I will try to forget, too, | if you only let me stay and make some use of the life tried to take" And the Mother had heard her prayer and she had stayed. Her gentle, quiet manners and unobtrusive kindness made her the be- i loved of the community. as well as of the hospital wards. Whenever one Of the nuns was i'll she was sure to ask as 6 favor that Sister Dolores might be her nurse. | So passed ten peaceful years, and now the murderer's Lucille, forgive me,n had told its tale. The Mother Superior sighed and thought of the answering Fl forgive" of long before. h
 "How she must have loved, i" she wffs- pered. The heavy iron doors were open- I ing as she turned to go, and come men at- tendsnts were bringing in another lifeless one to share the solitude with Sister Dsl- ores. .,t
 "The murderer is dead, Mother,n ? they said. jn e3s. l. qsle1.EGo yI4it "Plaos him beside her" '" and wondering they obeyed. .-.s ,4 ea,s .4~