"You are welcome, nevertheless," replied Theresa, "for I know that in admitting your sisterhood we often entertain angels unawares."
The new comer seated herself, and the young artist strove in vain to recall her features; they were those of a stranger.
"You are personally unknown to me, Theresa," said the lady, after a brief silence, "but your father was one of my earliest friends. Nay—it matters not to ask my name; the one I then bore, is parted with now, and I would not willingly speak it again; under a different appellation I have been lowlier and happier."
"You knew my father, then," rejoined Theresa, eagerly, "in his younger and more prosperous days. His loss I feel more keenly as my experience increases; for I was too young at his death to appreciate in reality, as I now do in memory, all his character's high, and generous, and spiritual beauty."
"We met often in the gay world," replied the guest—and her words were uttered less to Theresa than to herself—"and our acquaintance was formed under circumstances which ripened into intimacy what might otherwise have proved only one of those commonplace associations that lightly link society together; but it is of yourself I would speak. I have opportunities in the fulfillment of my duties of hearing and seeing much that passes in the busy world about me; and I have been prompted by the old memories still clinging around me, to proffer you the counsel of a friend. Will you forgive me, if I address you candidly and unreservedly?"
And then, as Theresa wonderingly granted the desired permission, she proceeded gently to detail some of the efforts of malice, and to utter words of kind warning to one who, enfolded within her own illusions, saw nothing of the shadows gathering about her path.
"You are not happy, Theresa!" continued the sister; "I know too much of woman's life to believe you are. I am aware of the motives from which you act; and while I reverence your purity of heart, and the pride which has tempted you to work out your own destiny, I easily trace the weariness your spirit feels. I, too, have had my visions; they are God's gift to youth, but I have lived sadly and patiently to watch dream after dream fade away. I see you have forgotten me, although I saw you frequently at the convent of ——; but I am not surprised at your forgetfulness, for the nun's sombre veil shuts her out alike from hearts and memories."
"Are you, too, then unhappy?" asked Theresa, as the low and musical voice beside her trembled in its tone; "you, whose footsteps are followed by blessings, whose life is hallowed by doing good? I have long ago learned to doubt the peace of the cloister, but I have ever loved to believe there was recompense in your more active career, and that if happiness exists on earth, the Sisters of Charity deserve and win it."
"In part, you are right," answered the nun, "but you have yet to realize that the penalties of humanity are beyond mortal control; that we cannot, by any mode of life, pass beyond their influence. All we can do, is prayerfully to acquire patient forbearance and upward hope; many a heavy heart beats beneath a veil like this, and carries its own woes silently within, while it whispers to others of promise and rest." The visiter paused, and Theresa interrupted a silence that began to be painful to both.
"I feel," she said, "that I have acted injudiciously in braving remark, and in proudly dreaming I could shape out my own course. But you, who seem to have divined my thoughts so truly, doubtless read also the one reason which renders my return home most depressing."