Sister Carmen | Page 3

musingly, and the gaze from her dark eyes wandered away off, beyond her companion. "Can we ever do that? God has created us so different; if He had wished us all to be alike, would He not have made us so?"
The man looked at her earnestly, and an expression of disapproval passed over his face as he answered: "Any one, to hear you speak in that way, and not know you as well as I do, would never believe that you had lived so long among us and were one of us. I have known you always, ever since you were a wee, toddling thing. It was in Jamaica, when I went to your father from the mission."
Carmen blushed deeply at the rebuke which lay in his words, and, as if to atone, said quickly:
"Oh, forgive me! I am sure I would gladly be like you all if I only could. But I cannot always be calm and serene, as every one else here is; and I fear our dear Sister Agatha, with all her endeavors, will succeed as little in changing me, as you do in trying to produce the same degree of health in every one, even though you be the wise and learned Doctor Jonathan Fricke. Each bird sings after its own fashion, and although all are different, yet none are bad. I cannot believe every one is culpable who does not pass through life calmly and sedately, as we endeavor to do. It surely cannot be wrong for people to laugh, and dance! Dance!" and she laughed outright, so that her pearly teeth gleamed from between the rosy lips. "It must be enchanting to skip round and round to the sound of merry music!" She had allowed herself to be carried away by enthusiasm, and spoke louder than was consistent with Moravian decorum, or suitable to the place where she was. Her eyes sparkled, and the dainty little foot which peeped forth from under her dress seemed altogether suited to trip with fairy fleetness through the merry mazes of the dance.
One glance, however, at her companion recalled her to the present. Her eyes sank, the little foot was hastily withdrawn, and she wrapped more closely about her the dark shawl which had slipped from her shoulders.
"But the time! the time!" she stammered. "It is getting later and later while we are chatting, and Sister Agatha will have good cause to be vexed with me."
With fleet steps she hurried through the quiet graveyard, down the hill, and along the path which led to the dwellings of the settlement. Jonathan stood looking after her, as long as his eye could discern the airy, lithe figure.
All pretence of calmness had vanished from his face. His eyes glittered with a strange light and glowed with passionate desire. For a moment the staid, elderly man was transformed into an eager, ardent youth.
"She inherits the hot, proud Spanish blood of her mother, and, alas! the same fatal, enchanting beauty also," he muttered. "If I could only win her--" He stopped abruptly, as if fearful of being overheard, and began to brush away some imaginary specks of dust from his sleeve. Drooping his head into its usual pious attitude, his face assumed its former grave expression, and he was again the sedate, quiet Brother.

CHAPTER II.
A Moravian settlement! As we enter it, it seems as if we stepped into another sphere, so utterly unlike is it to the bustle and hurry of the age of progress which prevails in the outer world that presses so closely upon its borders, and against which it quietly but firmly opposes the bulwarks of its ancient customs, the simplicity of its regulations, and the severity of its discipline. It has no intercourse with the tide of human life surging around it. It seems like a small body of Christians, left from the Apostolic age, that after being buried for centuries has been dug out in later days. The government of the community resembles that of a large family bound together by ties of love; all its members are brothers and sisters, divided, according to age, sex, and conditions of life, into bands called choruses, at the head of each an elder, either male or female, presiding and superintending its spiritual affairs and enforcing its daily discipline. Each elder gives in a report of all that occurs in the chorus to the Conference, as this is the chief board of management in the society. There is, therefore, nothing which transpires in the life of any individual that is not brought before this tribunal.
About ten o'clock one morning, an elegant carriage, drawn by two spirited horses, passed through the quiet, scrupulously clean streets of the settlement, and drew up at the door of the hotel, or, as they call it,