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130 those innocent, child-like, sunny-natured nuns of Moldavian Monastica.

Mother Veronica sat in deep thought, the sun upon her silvered hair, primroses and an antique vellum "Horae" lying together in her lap—the fresh gifts of Nature with the worn manual of Superstition—venerable and happy in her serene old age. The primroses were untouched, the missal lay unread. Mother Veronica was looking out at the blue mountain line; and thinking of the stranger to whom she had felt almost that mother's tenderness which her life had not known, though in her eyes he was godless and a lost soul, a grand Pagan whom it was hopeless to save; thinking wistfully, for she believed that on earth she would never see him again. Suddenly she heard in the convent aisle without, the iron ring of a tread more like that of the Knights Templar, who had once held Monastica, than like the subdued slow step of her order;—she started and listened; could it be that the Virgin had heard her prayers, and allowed her to see the heathen who was, perchance, so wrongly dear to her? She hardly hoped it; yet she listened with longing anxiety. It was very sinful to so wish behold the mere mortal life of a heretic! But that he was such an infidel, Mother Veronica