"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 summer air, here all gold and blue, yonder with purple glory crowning the dim far away? Intuitively she recognized the fact that she was confronting the first cross roads in her hitherto monotonous life, and a vague dread flitted like ill-omened birds before her, darkening her vision.
In the gladiatorial arena of the court-room, Mr. Palma was regarded as a large-brained, nimble-witted, marble-hearted man, of vast ambition and tireless energy in the acquisition of his aims; but his colleagues and clients would as soon have sought chivalric tenderness in a bronze statue, or a polished obelisk of porphyry. To-day as he curiously watched the quivering yet proud little girlish face, her brave struggles to meet the emergency touched some chord far down in his reticent stern nature, and he suddenly stooped, and took her hand, folding it up securely in his.
"Are you not quite willing to trust yourself with me?"
She hesitated a moment, then said with a slight wavering in her low tone:
"I have been very happy here, and I love the Sisters dearly; but you are my mother's friend, and whatever she wishes me to do of course must be right."
Oh beautiful instinctive faith in maternal love and maternal wisdom!
Wot ye the moulding power ye wield, ye mothers of America?
Pressing her fingers gently as if to reassure her, he said:
"I dislike to hurry you away from these kind Sisters, but if your baggage is ready we have no time to spare."