Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/50



A more delightful traveling companion than Harriet could not be desired. Virginia thought her young sister charming, and even the sweet-faced nuns at the convent accepted her as a happy interruption to their serenely monotonous quiet.

"She is the spirit of the West, an embodiment of its free winds, its rushing crystal rivers, its untamed grandeurs," sighed the mother superior, recalling a journey she had once made to the slope beyond the Rockies.

"She is certainly untamed," replied Sister Agatha, who was to accompany the two girls to New York, and who was receiving her instructions for the journey in the privacy of the mother's sitting-room, "I tremble to think of her inflence over Virginia."

"Virginia is secure," said the mother superior. "It is she who will wield the stronger influence. You understand clearly what it is you have to do?

"It is very simple, is it not? I am to deliver the young ladies into the hands of the father who will be waiting to receive them. All provisions for their comfort will have been arranged. And I am then to bid them good-bye and return at once to Montreal. Is it not so?"

It was so, and after a few words of admonition and warning, Sister Agatha was dismissed, and the mother superior sat musing in the dusk alone. It was five years since Virginia had entered the convent doors, brought thither by her young husband. A mere child she had seemed to the gentle sisters; timid and silent, yet eager to explore the realms of learning. They had watched and guided her mental growth. The gradual unfolding of her woman's nature had been a beautiful spectacle to them. It was as if some lovely flower nourished and protected by their tender care had blossomed to reward them with its sweetness. They had shared her simple joys, and her sorrow had been theirs. In all things they felt she was their own, and they would miss her when she went away, out into the great world to play her part in the drama of life. The mother superior sighed when she thought of the trials and temptations that might beset the path of her young favorite. And then, for she was a woman, and had a woman's love of romance still in spite of convent walls, black veil and ivory crucifix, she fell to dreaming of a future for Robert Raymond's widow, in which one who was near and dear to her should play the part of the prince.

"May I come in, mother?" a soft voice broke through her dreaming.

"My child, yes, come in."

Virginia moved forward in the warm darkness of the narrow room, and knelt at the mother's knee. "It is the last night," she said. "I wanted to come to you to tell you how deeply, truly grateful I am for all your loving care and kindness. This roof has been my home for five happy years, and now when I am going away, perhaps forever"—her voice broke—"O mother, mother, I want to stay with you. I am afraid, afraid of the world." Mother Elizabeth laid her hand upon the young head bowed upon her knee.

"My child, why do you fear?" she asked.

"I do not know," murmured Virgina. "Only I am terrified. When I think of what may come I feel so alone."

"You have your sister. She has courage enough for two."

Virginia smiled through her tears. "Harriet is afraid of nothing," she said. "She is eager to see the world; but I do not care for this journey across the seas. If it were not for Harriet I should give it up even now."

"It is best that you should go, my child. Besides," she hesitated, then went on, "there is one who will be disappointed if you do not."

Virginia was silent. She was wondering, as she had often wondered of late, how it was that her future seemed ordered for her. That while no direct opposition was made to her expressed wishes