across the street.

"Are there children here?" Lewis asked, surprised; and their
guide said, sadly:

"Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made
a great difference. We've only got two. Folks used to send 'em
to us to bring up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age.
Sister Lydia came that way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did,
poor girl! She went back into the world twenty years ago, now.
And Sister Jane, she was a bound-out child, too," he rambled on;
"she came here when she was six; she's seventy now."

"What!" Lewis exclaimed; "has she never known anything but--this?"

His shocked tone did not disturb the old man.
"Want to see my herb-house?" he said. "Guess you'll find
some of the sisters in the sorting-room. I'm Nathan Dale,"
he added, courteously.

They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building,
from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into
the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped
and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs;
then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft.
Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over
great piles of herbs in silence--the silence, apparently, of peace
and meditation. Two of them were dressed like world's people,
but the others wore small gray shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins,
and little caps of white net stretched smoothly over wire frames;