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46 windows. I can see the plant from here; there were four pinks on it yesterday, and to-day there are only three. The neighbor, eh? What folly! There is neither sense nor reason in that."

This time Berta turned pale, and looked fixedly at her nurse, as if she had not taken in the sense of her words.

"I don't mean," resumed the nurse, "that you ought to take the veil, or that the neighbor is a man to be looked down upon either; but you are worthy of a king, and there is no sort of sense in this. A few signals from window to window; a few sidelong glances, and then—what? Nothing. You will forget each other. It will be out of sight out of mind with both of you."

Berta shook her head.

"You say it will not be so?" asked the nurse.

"I say it will not," answered Berta.

"And why not? Let us hear why not? What security have you—"

Berta did not allow her to finish.

"Our vows," she said.

"Vows!" cried the nurse, crossing herself. "Is that where we are!—Vows!" she repeated, scornfully; "pretty things they are—words that the wind carries away."

Some memory of her own youth must have come to her mind at this moment, for she sighed and then went on:

"And would they by chance be the first vows