"She evidently does not suggest wax, save in the texture of her fine
skin, and one rarely finds in a child's face so much of steel as is
ambushed in the creases of the rose leaves that serve her as lips. If
her will matches her mother's, this little one certainly was not
afflicted with a misnomer at her baptism." He rose, looked at his
watch, and walked across the room as if to inspect a _Pieta_ that
hung upon the wall. Unwilling to conclude an interview which had
yielded her no information, Mother Aloysius patiently awaited the
result of the examination, but he finally went to the window, and a
certain unmistakable expression of countenance which can be compared
only to a locking of mouth and eyes, warned her that he was alert and
inflexible. With a smothered sigh she left her seat.

"As you seem impatient, Mr. Palma, I will endeavour to hasten the
preparations for your departure."

"If you please, Mother; I shall feel indebted to your kind
consideration."

Nearly an hour elapsed ere she returned leading Regina, and as the
latter stood between Mother and Sister Angela, with a cluster of
fresh fragrant lilies in her hand, and her tender face blanched and
tearful, it seemed to the lawyer as if indeed the pet ewe lamb were
being led away from peaceful flowery pastures, from the sweet
sanctity of the cloistral fold, out through thorny devious paths
where Temptations prowl wolf-fanged, or into fierce conflicts that
end in the social shambles, those bloodless abattoirs where malice
mangles humanity. How many verdure-veiled, rose-garlanded pitfalls
yawned in that treacherous future now stretching before her like