SISTER

ISTER MARGARET'S rosy face looked more rosy as the fresh, frosty air struck her cheeks. The convent habit-supposed by the romancers to represent a pensive soul dead to all human interests-had no manner of special detachment in her case; it fitted very well with the air of bustle that pervaded the city landscape. Every negro for miles around was shoveling snow from the pavements, and Sister Margaret, who was of an energetic turn, clasped her hands in despair within her spotless sleeves as she viewed the movements of two black "boys" of forty and sixty on the pavement of the convent. Pompey and Cæsar turned their spades with the graceful languor of wavers of fans in the summer.

"It 's me-it 's I," she said, correcting herself, for, although Sister Margaret was not a teaching sister, she was a grammatical purist "it's I that would like to tuck up my habit and get down amongst them. Sure, one Kerry man would do more in half an hour with his hands than all of them with their wooden spades."

There had been a ring at the convent doorbell, and Sister Margaret had, in the temporary absence of the portress, opened it; but no one was in sight.

Sister Margaret, from her position on the high steps, looked about sharply. A young girl with dancing blue eyes, a sprightly step, and high bows in her hat as blue as her eyes, went by, smiling and nodding at the good sister.

Mary Ann Magee," she said to herself; "and it's Mary Ann Magee here and Mary Ann Magee there, with her blue bows and her gay ways, and the foolish young men paying her attention, and her old mother working away at the wash-tub. 'T is the way with Irish mothers--they're foolish and tender with their children. Mrs. Magee is a Tipperary woman, and Tipperary is n't Kerry. And what did you want?"

Sister Margaret was accustomed to tramps. The convent was by no means rich, and the prioress, Mother Juliet, had

some economic notions about the treatment of the poor who could work; but nevertheless, and in spite of Sister Margaret's cool and deliberate gaze, which pierced through the excuses of men, the weary if not always worthy wanderer found the convent alms plain but bounteous.

The man who had suddenly bobbed up from under the iron steps had a gray kitten in his hand. His red, uncut hair had made its way under the battered crown of his hat. His upper garment, buttoned close to the chin, was a coat of the kind called Prince Albert, glossy, worn; and it had evidently been made for a much shorter person, and this red-haired man was very tall. His shoes were tied with rope, and his pink, frost-bitten wrists shone below the frayed sleeves of the glossy coat.

"Another drinking man, I suppose," thought Sister Margaret, discontentedly.

One look at the clear complexion, marred by several weeks' growth of sandy-colored hair, undeceived her. She knew her world well, and tramps were as much of her world as the innocent little boys who be seeched her for molasses and bread between school hours. There was an honest look in the helpless brown eyes of the man that to her experienced gaze showed that he was not of the vicious class.

"It's some woman to manage him-poor creature!-he needs. It's the way with half the men-their mothers don't live long enough, and the wives most of them get are without gumption at all. Well, what is it my good man?" she asked in her professiona tone.

"I am sorry to keep you waitin', sisther," said the man, with a rich brogue, "but I just jumped down to pick up this poor omadhaun of a little cat, that's got itself almost frozen." The sister examined the stiff ball of gray fur.

"I'll take it. Sure, if Sister Rosalie can't bring it to life by the kitchen fire it must be dead entirely."

"Is there any work for me, sisther?"

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That brogue-the brogue of her place in Kerry-went to Sister Margaret's heart. She knew that Mother Juliet's economic theories would not be softened by the fact that a tramp had a Kerry brogue, for the poor prioress, with all her learning, scarcely knew the brogue when she heard it! She was well aware, too, that the helplessness of any man would never appeal sufficiently to Mother Juliet to cause her to make work for him when the resources of the convent were taxed to pay the retainers absolutely needed for the care of the heating apparatus and other details which Sister Margaret's capable hands could not touch. Something to eat, and perhaps a note of appeal for him to some kind priest, were all Sister Margaret saw, in her mind's eye, for the pathetic Kerry man. Still, Mother Juliet had one weakness, and this was for souls. She would go far for a strayed sheep; and if this man's soul were in danger, he might be taken on to sift the ashes and to help with the boiler until his spiritual health should be restored. With fear and trembling and the sound of the old homely inflection in her ears, Sister Margaret asked the question:

"Do you go regularly to mass, my good

man?"

The man hung his head, and even the wisp of hair that straggled beneath his hat seemed to grow redder. Sister Margaret's face was illuminated with a beautiful and hopeful smile.

"Tell the truth, now, as you 're an honest man,' " she said.

"To tell the truth as an honest man," replied the applicant, with lead on his voice, "I've been neglectful. I 've been to mass off and on the year, but not reg'lar."

"And have you gone to your duties?" continued Sister Margaret, knowing well that her hopes for her compatriot depended largely on his having not done nearly everything he ought to have done. The man blushed and hesitated. Sister Margaret tried to assume a professional manner as portress.

"I've not been reg'lar," he said. "If I were near the holy sisthers, and workin' for them, maybe God would give me the grace-" "Have you been away from your duties for more than a year?" asked Sister Margaret, with apprehension.

"Oh, it 's me that 's ashamed to confess it!" said the man. "It's me that's ashamed, sisther, to say three years and more, come Easther."

"Thanks be to God!" said Sister Mar

garet, involuntarily. "You 're in mortal sin, man! Go back to the kitchen gate, and I'll tell Mother Juliet."

Mother Juliet had just come into the oldfashioned parlor through the great mahogany doors of Henry Clay's time when Sister Margaret entered. She held Street's "Economics for Young Minds," and the chapter on "Money" was marked by a lace-edged picture of St. Stephen with a large arrow in his side. Her most important class was over, and as she had put her whole heart in it, she was tired and absent-minded. Sister Margaret loved and revered her; but, as she was a convert and not from Kerry, Sister Margaret often felt that she needed unusual management.

"Well, my dear sister?" asked the prioress, looking, in her white robe, like a very tired and well-bred statue.

"It's a soul, reverend mother, that's waiting nourishment and work at the back gate," said Sister Margaret-"a soul-"

"Yes, yes," said the prioress. "Well, sister, you know what to do. There are tickets for the Charitable Association on the mantelpiece in the kitchen. Although, of course, I agree with what the Holy Father says in his very latest encyclical as to almsgiving, yet I cannot help thinking that the sanest way in which to treat our fellowcreatures must be based on scientific principles. The Holy Father-"

'Ah, since I heard Father Dudley's sermon on 'The Husks of Science,' it's little I care for it, reverend mother. There's a poor soul at the gate, mother, that has n't been to his duty for three years, and the number of times he has missed mass I can't-" 'Dear, dear! You don't tell me so, Sister Margaret!"

"And it's little good the tickets of the Charitable Association will do a poor man in a state of sin."

"Give him a good cup of coffee, and send him with a note to Father Dudley. He will touch the poor man's heart and lead him to confession.. Sister Margaret, I notice that the window-panes in the laundry are not so clear-'

woman well enough to see dimly into Sister Margaret's plan.

"Well," she said, with the impatience of these details caused by absorption in her thoughts of her own teaching-"well, do what you can; but remember, we are poorer than even our vow of poverty requires, Sister Margaret. You, in your great kindness, forget that our resources are not what they once were. Give him something for doing the laundry windows."

"I can't forget, reverend mother," said Sister Margaret, "that there's a soul to be saved."

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Set him to work, then," answered the prioress, growing graver at once, "and I will go," she added rather timidly, "and read something spiritual to him. There are some beautiful passages in St. Francis de Sales, and he may be an intelligent man."

"Little she knows, God help her!" thought Sister Margaret. "Sure, a good talk of old Kerry days will be better for the boy than all the spiritual reading in the world."

The prioress was relieved by the look of hesitancy on Sister Margaret's face.

"You know better, sister, how to deal with the case; but get the poor man off to Father Dudley at once, just as soon as you see him softening a little."

"It's strange," thought the prioress, with a gentle perception of the situation, "that all Sister Margaret's distressed souls are Irish."

In a few minutes Lewis Maginnis was at work, on a ladder in the laundry, battling with that small amount of matter that seldom gets out of place in a convent. His story was plain. He had drifted from a Kerry farm to New York. It was evident that he was simple, good-natured, rather soft in temperament, and at the beck of circumstances. He had worked when he could find work for his unskilled hands; when the winter came on he had drifted again-southward this time.

In the course of a long and busy life Sister Margaret had never enjoyed herself so much as on the afternoon of her meeting with Lewis Maginnis. Here was material made for her molding hand, clay ready for the potter; here was an opportunity of furthering the progress, spiritual and material, of a soul from her part of Ireland, and of having her own way in a good cause.

Sister Rosalie, who ruled the kitchen, was urged to unusual efforts in the way of coffee and waffles by a graphic description of Lewis Maginnis's aptitude for fetching and carry

ing, for this serving sister had reason to regard the colored masculine aids as trifling.

Maginnis himself was delightfully docile and sufficiently respectful. In the twentyfive years of his life he had never done anything but what circumstances compelled him to do. It was cordial indeed to find circumstances impersonated by such a kindly and motherly force as Sister Margaret..

When he had finished the laundry windows, refreshed himself with unlimited waffles and coffee, and sifted the ashes, Sister Margaret sent him over to the Widow Magee's to enter there as a lodger until her inventive mind could discover some new means of employment for him.

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"He has the making of a decent man in him," Sister Margaret thought, as she watched him cross the wide street. Heaven knows how he 's to pay for his lodging at the end of the week; but God is good. It would n't be safe to send him over there with Mary Ann about, if I knew she would n't try to make a fool of him,—at least, till he has a new suit of clothes,—the creature!

Still, Sister Margaret had her doubts. She respected the Widow Magee's virtues, and she helped her in many ways, but she felt that, once out of her sight, the widow was the abject slave of her frivolous daughter with the aggressive blue bows.

Lewis Maginnis was provided with a warm room for the present, and Sister Margaret, at the sound of one of the many bells which are as the voice of God, dismissed him from her mind. He appeared on the next morning early, very much improved by a bath and a razor, and with a hat, a little too large, which had once belonged to the late lamented Magee.

Mother Juliet, absorbed as she was, could not help observing that Maginnis seemed to be gradually replacing all the other intermittent "help." The colored "boys" disappeared, Pompey-whose soul had been saved several times, and who had spiritual relapses whenever he wanted unusual attentiongoing last.

'Maginnis seems to be a hard worker," Mother Juliet said one day as she examined the crystal-clear laundry windows.

"He is that, reverend mother," answered Sister Margaret, with a just pride; "and Father Dudley has him to serve his mass nearly every day, and sometimes he blows the organ when there's a funeral in the chapel."

"I trust he will not neglect our work," said the prioress, in alarm.

Mother Juliet looked pleased. To have a man at peace with his Creator and capable of looking after the boiler and the ashes was an unusual thing.

Sister Margaret's plans for the advancement of Lewis Maginnis were more and more successful; and Mrs. Magee, who now received a modest stipend from her lodger, seconded them warmly. Maginnis of April 30 was no longer Maginnis of February 3. A transformation had taken place. He was erect, respectably clad, alert, well shaven on Wednesdays and Sundays, and still the very symbol of docility. If Sister Margaret had been devoid of artistic feeling, she would have let the result of her work alone; but one of the retainers of the church retired from active service, and Sister Margaret at once suggested her protégé to Father Dudley.

One of the colored "boys"-Pompey was recalled to make up the lapses in convent attendance. Mother Juliet was alarmed; there was a noticeable difference in the laundry windows.

"It's for the good of his soul that he should be as near Father Dudley as possible, reverend mother," spoke Sister Margaret.

Mother Juliet had nothing to say to this, but she could not help hoping that Sister Margaret's next treasure would have a less sensitive soul.

Maginnis rose more and more in favor with the fathers at the church. This Sister Margaret noticed with pleasure. The artist was strong within her, and already she had forgotten the interests of the convent in the vision of Lewis Maginnis as sexton of the big church.

"A Kerry boy, too," she said to herself; "and he'll soon be with a buttonhole bouquet in his coat, showing the sisters to their pew of a Sunday."

Pompey was at work for good,-or for bad, and Cæsar had returned; Maginnis came only with messages from the church, or to give counsel when something went wrong with the boiler. Mother Juliet missed

On Easter Sunday Sister Margaret's dream was realized. Beaming with pride, his red hair shining above his black coat, which held a large red rosebud, stood Lewis Maginnis beside the church door, waiting for the sisters to arrive. They came, and, as Maginnis led the way to their pew, Sister Margaret felt all the justifiable pride of a sculptor whose statue has been bought by a really appreciative patron.

In the afternoon Maginnis came to the convent-by the front door, as he had at first come. He asked for Sister Margaret, and laid his glossy silk hat on the big volume of Butler's "Lives of the Saints" that graced the table.

"Well, Lewis Maginnis," said Sister Margaret, entering with Sister Rosalie. ""T is a happy man you ought to be."

"And I am, sisther-thanks be to God and you."

"It is I had little to do with it, Maginnis," said Sister Margaret, with much humility. Maginnis blushed.

"If it was n't for you, sisther, I'd never have met her."

There was a pause. A light flashed upon Sister Margaret.

"And so you 're going to settle downand it's well," said Sister Margaret, nodding as one who knows the heart of man. There is no better woman living than Mrs. Magee. And I hope you'll both keep that Mary Ann in order."

"It was Mrs. Magee I thought of first," said Maginnis, with simplicity, "but she thought I'd better take Mary Ann, as it would steady her; and Magee in his grave only ten months would set the neighbors talking."

Sister Margaret did not speak. A vision of the high blue bows obscured the ruddy smile of Lewis Maginnis. When she spoke it was as if to a far-distant man.

She had assisted him successfully in his evolution. Spiritually, he was in a state of grace; physically, he was as the dragon-fly to the tadpole; artistically, he was what she had conceived he ought to be. He looked, as he stood in the parlor, with a rosebud in his lapel, the ideal sexton. And yet—