The door opened, and Mother Ada looked in.

"Sister Annora, you are released. Come to prime."

Oh, to have tarried only a minute! For a light which never was from sun or moon had broken over the dying face, and she vainly tried to stretch her hands forth with a rapturous cry of—"Guendolen! Did the Master send thee for me?"

"Sister! You forget yourself," said Mother Ada, when I lingered. "Remember the rule of holy obedience!"

I suppose it was very wicked of me—I am always doing wicked things—but I did wish that holy obedience had been at the bottom of the Red Sea, I kissed the trembling hand of the dear old Mother, and signed the holy cross upon her brow to protect her when she was left alone, and then I followed Mother Ada. After prime I was ordered to the work-room. I looked round, and saw that Sister Roberga and Margaret were missing. I did hope Margaret, and not Sister Roberga, had been sent up to the Infirmary. Of course I could not ask.

For two hours I sewed with my heart in the Infirmary. If the rule of holy obedience had been at the bottom of the Red Sea, I am sure I should not have tarried in that work-room another minute. And then I heard the passing bell. It struck so cold to my heart that I had hard work to keep my broidering in a straight line.

A few minutes later, Margaret appeared at the door. She knelt down in the doorway, and made the sign of the cross, saying, "Peace eternal grant to us, O Lord!"

And we all responded, led by Mother Ada,—"Lord, grant to Thy servant our Sister everlasting peace!"

So then I knew that Mother Alianora had been sent for by the Master of us all.

"Sister Margaret!" said Mother Ada.

Margaret rose, went up to Mother Ada, and knelt again.

"How comes it thou art the messenger? I sent Sister Roberga to the Infirmary this morning."

"Mother Gaillarde bade me go to the Infirmary," said Margaret in a low voice, "and sent Sister Roberga down to the laundry."

"Art thou speaking truth?" asked Mother Ada.

Margaret's head went up proudly. "King Alfred the Truth-Teller was my forefather," she said.

"Well! perhaps thou dost," answered Mother Ada, as if unwilling to admit it. "But it is very strange. I shall speak to Sister Gaillarde."

"What about?" said Mother Gaillarde, appearing suddenly from the passage to my Lady's rooms.

"Sister Gaillarde, this is very strange conduct of you!" said Mother Ada. "I ordered Sister Roberga to the Infirmary."

"You did, Sister, and I altered your order. I am your superior, I believe?"

Mother Ada, who is usually very pale, went red, and murmured something which I could not hear.

"Nonsense!" said Mother Gaillarde.

To my unspeakable astonishment, Mother Ada burst into tears. She has so many times told the children, and not seldom the Sisters, that tears were a sign of weakness, and unworthy of reasonable, not to say religious, women—that they ought to be shed in penitence alone, or in grief at a slight offered to holy Church, that I could only suppose Mother Gaillarde had been guilty of some profanity.

"It is very hard!" sobbed Mother Ada. "That you should set yourself up in that way, when I was professed on the very same day as you—"

"What has that to do with it?" asked Mother Gaillarde.

"And my Lady shows you much more favour than she does me: only to-day you have been in her rooms twice!"

"I wish she would send for you," said Mother Gaillarde, "for it is commonly to waste time over some sort of fiddle-faddle that I despise. You are heartily welcome to it, I can tell you! Now, come, Sister Ada, don't be silly and set a bad example. It is all nonsense, and you know it."

Off marched Mother Gaillarde with a firm step. Mother Ada continued to sob.

"Nobody could bear such treatment!" said she. "The blessed Virgin herself would not have stood it. I am sure Sister Gaillarde is not a bit better than I am—of course I do not speak on my own account, but for the honour of the Order: that is what I am anxious about. It does not matter in the least how people tread me down—I am the humblest-minded Sister in the house; but I am a Mother of the Order, and I feel Sister Gaillarde's words exceedingly. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and I do marvel where Sister Gaillarde thinks she is going. I shall offer my next communion for her, that she may be more humble-minded. I am sure she needs it."

Mother Ada bit off her thread, as she said this, with a determined snap, as if it had cruelly provoked her. I was lost in amazement, for Mother Ada has always seemed so calm and icy that I thought nothing could move her, and here she was making a fuss about nothing, like one of the children. She had not finished when Mother Gaillarde came back.

"What, not over it yet?" said she, in her usual style. "Dear me, what a storm in a porringer!"

Mother Ada gave a bursting sob and a long wail to end it; but Mother Gaillarde took no more notice of her, only telling us all that Mother Alianora would be buried to-morrow, and that after the funeral we were to assemble in conclave to elect a new Mother. It will be Sister Ismania, I doubt not; for she is eldest of the Sisters, and the one most generally held in respect.

In the evening, at recreation-time, Sister Philippa came up to me.

"So we are to meet to elect a new Mother!" said she, with much satisfaction in her tone. "I always like meeting in conclave. There is something grand about it. For whom will you vote, Sister Annora?"

"I have not thought much about it," said I, "except that I suppose every body will vote for Sister Ismania."

"I shall not," said Mother Joan.

I see so little of Mother Joan that I think I have rarely mentioned her. She is Mistress of the Novices, and seldom comes where I am.

"You will not, Mother? For whom, then?" said Sister Philippa.

"If you should be appointed to collect the votes, Sister, you will know," was Mother Joan's reply.

"Now, is that not too bad?" said Sister Philippa, when Mother Joan had passed on. "Of course the Mothers will collect the votes."

"I fancy Mother Joan meant we Sisters ought not to ask," I said.

"O Sister! did you not enjoy that quarrel between the Mothers this morning?" cried she.

"Certainly not," I answered. "I could not enjoy seeing any one either distressed or angry."

"Oh; but it was so delightful to see Mother Ada let herself down!" cried Philippa. "So proud and stuck-up and like an icicle as she always is! Ha jolife! and she calls herself the humblest Sister in the house!"

Margaret had come up, and stood listening to us.

"Who think you is the humblest, Sister Philippa?"

"I don't know," said Sister Philippa. "If you asked me who was the proudest, maybe I could tell—only that I should have to name so many."

"Well, I should need to name but one," said I. "I would fain be the humblest; but that surely am I not: and I find so many wicked motions of pride in mine heart that I cannot believe any of us can be worse than myself."

"I think I know who is the lowliest of us, and the holiest," said Margaret as she turned away; "and I shall vote for her."

"Who can she mean?" asked Sister Philippa.

"I do not know at all," said I; and indeed I do not.

Dear Mother Alianora was buried this afternoon. The mass for the dead was very, very solemn. We laid her down in the Sisters' graveyard, till the resurrection morn shall come, when we shall all meet without spot of sin in the presence-chamber of Heaven. Till then, O holy and merciful Saviour, suffer us not, now and at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee!

We passed directly from the funeral into conclave. My Lady sent word to the Master that we were about to elect a Mother, and he sent us his benediction on our labour. We all filed into our oratory, and sat down in our various stalls. Then, after singing the Litany of the Holy Ghost, Mother Gaillarde passed down the choir on the Gospel side, and Mother Ada on the Epistle side, collecting the votes. When all were collected, the two Mothers went up to my Lady, and she then came out of her stall, and headed them to the altar steps, where they all three knelt for a short space. Then my Lady, turning round to us, and coming forward, announced the numbers.

"Thirty-four votes: for Sister Roberga, one; for Sister Isabel, two; for Sister Ismania, eleven; for Sister Annora, twenty. Our Sister Annora is chosen."

It was a minute before I was able to understand that such an unintelligible and astounding thing had happened, as that our community had actually chosen me—me, of all people!—to execute the highest office in the house, next to my Lady Prioress herself. Mother Gaillarde and Mother Ada came up to me, to lead me up to the altar.

"But it cannot be," said I. I felt completely confused.

"Thou art our Sister Annora, I believe," saith Mother Gaillarde, looking rather amused; "and I marvel the less at the choice since I helped to make it."

"I!" I said again, feeling more amazed than ever at what she said; "but I'm not a bit fit for such a place as that! Oh, do choose again, and fix on somebody more worthy than I am!"

"The choice of the community, guided by the Holy Spirit, has fallen on you, Sister," said Mother Ada, in a cold, hollow voice.

"Come along, and don't be silly!" whispered Mother Gaillarde, taking my right arm.

I really think Mother Gaillarde's words helped to rouse me from my stupor of astonishment, better than any thing else. Of course, if God called me to a certain work, He could put grace and wisdom into me as easily as into any one else; and I had only to bow to His will. But I did so wish it had been another who was chosen. Sister Ismania would have made a far better officer than I. And to think of such a poor, stupid, confused thing as I am, being put over her head! But, if it were God's will—that settled the matter.

It all felt so dreamy that I can scarcely tell what happened afterwards. I remember that I knelt before my Lady, and before the altar—but I felt too confused for prayer, and could only say, "Domine, miserere me!" for no other words would come: and then the Master came and blessed me, and made a short address to me (of which I believe I hardly took in a word), and appointed the next day for the service of ordination.

I am an ordained Mother of the Order of Saint Gilbert. And I do not feel any difference. I thought I should have done. The Master himself sang the holy mass, and we sang Veni Creator Spiritus, and he said in his address afterwards, that when his hands were laid on my head, the Holy Ghost came down and filled me with His presence—and I did not feel that He did. Of course it was all very solemn, and I did most earnestly desire the influences of the blessed Spirit, for I shall never be able to do any thing without them: but really I felt our Lord nearer me in the evening, when I knelt by my bed for a minute, and asked Him, in my own poor words, to keep me in the right way, and teach me to do His will. I think I shall try that again. Now that I have a cell to myself, I can do it. And I sleep in dear Mother Alianora's cell, where I am sure the blessed Lord has been wont to come. Oh, I hope He will not tarry away because I am come into it—I, who am so worthless, and so weak, and need His gracious aid so much more than she did!

I do wish, if so great a favour could possibly be vouchsafed to me, that I might speak to our Lord just once. He has ere this held converse with the holy saints. Of course I am not holy, nor a saint, nor in the least merit any such grace from Him: but I need it more than those who merit it. Oh, if I could know,—once, certainly, and for ever—whether it is earthly, and carnal, and wicked, as people say it is, for me to grieve over that lost love of mine! Sister Ismania says it is all folly and imagination on my part, because, having been parted when we were only six years old, I cannot possibly (she says) feel any real, womanly love for him. But I do not see why it must be grown-up to be real. And I never knew any thing better or more real. It may not be like what others have, but it was all I had. I wish sometimes that I knew if he still lives, and whether that other wife lives to whom I suppose somebody must have married him after I was thrust in here. I cannot feel as if he did not still, somehow, belong to me. If I only knew whether it was wrong!

I have been appointed mistress of the work-room, and I ought to keep it in order. How I can ever do it, I cannot think. I shall never be able to chide the Sisters like the other Mothers: and to have them coming up to me, when they are chidden, and kissing the floor at my feet—I do not know how I can stand it. I am sure it will give me a dreadful feeling. However, I hope nothing will ever happen of that kind, for a long, long while.

What is the good of hoping any thing? Mother Gaillarde says that hopes, promises, and pie-crust are made to be broken. Certainly hopes seem to be. After all my wishes, if something did not happen the very first day!

When I got down to the work-room, what should I find but Sisters Roberga and Philippa having a violent quarrel. They were not only breaking the rule of silence, which in itself was bad enough, but they were calling each other all manner of names.

I was astonished those two should quarrel, for they have always been such friends that they had to be constantly reminded of the prohibition of particular friendships among the religious: but when they did, it reminded me of the adage that vernage makes the best vinegar.

Sister Isabel cast an imploring look at me, as I entered, which seemed to say, "Do stop them!" and I had not a notion how to set about it, except by saying—

"My dear Sisters, our rule enjoins silence."

On my saying this (which I did with much reluctance and some trembling) both of them turned round and appealed to me.

"She promised to vote for me, and she did not!" cried Sister Roberga.

"I did!" said Sister Philippa. "I kept my word."

"There was only one vote for me," answered Sister Roberga.

"Well, and I gave it," replied Sister Philippa.

"You couldn't have done! There must have been more than one."

"Why should there?"

"I know there was."

"How do you know?"

"I do know."

"You must have voted for yourself, then: you can't know otherwise," said Sister Philippa, scornfully.

Sister Roberga fairly screamed, "I didn't, you vile wretch!" and went exceedingly red in the face.

"Sister Roberga," said I—

"Don't you interfere!" shrieked Sister Roberga, turning fiercely on me. "You want a chance to show your power, of course. You poor, white-faced, sanctimonious creature, only just promoted, and that because every body voted for you, thinking you would be easily managed— just like a bit of putty in any body's fingers! And making such a fuss, as if you were so humble and holy, professing not to wish for it! Faugh! how I hate a hypocrite!"

I stood silent, feeling as if my breath were taken away.

"Yes, isn't she?" cried Sister Philippa. "Wanting Sister Ismania to be preferred, instead of her, after all her plotting with Mother Gaillarde and Sister Margaret! I can't bear folks who look one way and walk another, as she does. I shouldn't wonder if the election were vitiated,—not a bit!—and then where will you be, Mother Annora?"

"Where you will be, Sister Philippa, until compline," said a voice behind me, "is prostrate on the chapel floor: and after compline, you will kiss the floor at Mother Annora's feet, and ask her to forgive you. Sister Roberta, go to the laundry—there is nobody there—and do not come forth till I fetch you. You also, after compline, will ask the Mother's forgiveness."

Oh, how thankful I felt to Mother Gaillarde for coming in just then! She said no more at that time; but at night she came to my cell.

"Sister Annora," said she, "you must not let those saucy girls ride rough-shod over you. You should let them see you mean it."

"But," said I, "I am afraid I don't mean it."

Mother Gaillarde laughed. "Then make haste and do," said she. "You'll have a bear-garden in the work-room if you don't pull your curb a little tighter. You may always rely on Sister Ismania, Sister Isabel, and Sister Margaret to uphold your authority. It is those silly young things that have to be kept in order. I wish you joy of your new post: it is not all flowers and music, I can tell you."

"Oh dear, I feel so unfit for it!" I sighed.

Mother Gaillarde smiled. "Sister, I am a bad hand at paying compliments," she said. "But one thing I will say—you are the fittest of us all for the office, if you will only stand firm. Give your orders promptly, and stick to them. Pax tibi!"

I have put Mother Gaillarde's advice into action—or rather, I have tried to put it—and have brought a storm on my head. Oh dear, why cannot folks do right without all this trouble?

Sisters Amie and Catherine began to cast black looks at one another yesterday evening in the work-room, and when recreation-time came the looks blossomed into words. I told them both to be silent at once. This morning I was sent for by my Lady, who said that she had not expected me to prove a tyrant. I do not think tyrants feel their hearts go pitter-patter, as mine did, both last night and this morning. Of course I knelt and kissed her hand, and said how sorry I was to have displeased her.

"But, indeed, my Lady," said I, "I spoke as I did because I was afraid I had not been sufficiently firm before."

"Oh, I dare say it was all right," said my Lady, closing her eyes, as if she felt worried with the whole affair. "Only Sister Ada thought—I think somebody spoke to her—do as you think best, Sister. I dare say it will all come right."

I wish things would all come right, but it seems rather as if they all went wrong. And I do not quite see what business it is of Mother Ada's. But I ought not to be censorious.

Just as I was leaving the room, my Lady called me back. It does feel so new and strange to me, to have to go to my Lady herself about things, instead of to one of the Mothers! And it is not nearly so satisfactory; for where Mother Gaillarde used to say, "Do so, of course"—my Lady says, "Do as you like." I cannot even get accustomed to calling them Sister Gaillarde and Sister Ada, as, being a Mother myself, I ought to do now. Oh, how I miss our dear Mother Alianora! It frightens me to think of being in her place. Well, my Lady called me back to tell me that the Lady Joan de Greystoke desired to make retreat with us, and that we must prepare to receive her next Saturday. She is to have the little chamber next to the linen-wardrobe. My Lady says she is of good lineage, but she did not say of what family she came. She commanded me to tell the Mothers.

"Miserere!" said Mother—no, Sister Ada. "What an annoyance it is, to be sure, when externs come for retreat! She will unsettle half the young Sisters, and turn the heads of half the others. I know what a worry they are!"

"Humph!" said Sister Gaillarde. "Of good lineage, is she? That means, I suppose, that she'll think herself a princess, and look on all of us as her maid-servants. She may clean her own shoes so far as I'm concerned. Do her good. I'll be bound she never touched a brush before."

"Some idle young baggage, I've no doubt," said Sister Ada.

"Marry, she may be a grandmother," said Mo—Sister Gaillarde. "If she's eighty, she'll think she has a right to lecture us; and if she's only eighteen, she'll think so ten times more. You may depend upon it, she will reckon we know nought of the world, and that all the wisdom in it has got into her brains. These externs do amuse me."

"It is all very well for you to make fun of it, Sister Gaillarde," said Sister Ada, peevishly, "but I can tell you, it will be any thing but fun for you and me, if she set half the young Sisters, not to speak of the novices and pupils, coveting all manner of worldly pomps and dainties. And she will, as sure as my name is Ada."

"Thanks for your warning," said Mother Gaillarde. "I'll put a rod or two in pickle."

The Lady Joan's chamber is ready at last: and I am dad. Such a business I have had of it! I had no idea Sister Philippa was so difficult to manage: and as to Sister Roberga, I pity any one who tries to do it.

"You see, Sister Annora," said Sister Gaillarde, smiling rather grimly, "official life is not all flowers and sunshine. I don't pity my Lady, just because she shirks her duties: she merely reigns, and leaves us to govern; but I can tell you, no Prioress of this convent would have an easy life, if she did her duty. I remember once, when I was in the world, I saw a mountebank driving ten horses at once. I dare say he hadn't an easy time of it. But, lack-a-day! we have to drive thirty: and skittish fillies some of them are. I don't know what Sister Roberga has done with her vocation: but I never saw the corner of it since she came."

"Well!" I said with a sigh, "I suppose I never had one."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sister Gaillarde. "If you mean you never had a liking for the life, that may be true—you know more about that than I; but if you mean you do not fill your place well, and do your duty as well as you know how, and a deal better than most folks—why, again I say, stuff and nonsense! You are not perfect, I suppose. If you ever see any body who is, I should like to know her name. It won't be Gaillarde—that I know!"

I wonder whose daughter the Lady Joan is! Something in her eyes puzzles me so, as if she reminded me of somebody whom I had known, long, long ago—some Sister when I was novice, or perchance even some one whom I knew in my early childhood, before I was professed at all. They are dark eyes, but not at all like Margaret's. Margaret's are brown, but these are dark grey, with long black lashes; and they do not talk—they only look as if they could, if one knew how to make them. The Lady Joan is very quiet and attentive to her religious duties; I think Sister Ada's fears may sleep. She is not at all likely to unsettle any body. She talks very little, except when necessary. Two months, I hear, she will remain; and I do not think she will be any trouble to one of us. Even Sister Gaillarde says, "She is a decent woman: she'll do." And that means a good deal—from Sister Gaillarde.

I have the chance to speak to Margaret now. Of course a Mother can call any Sister to her cell if needful; and no one may ask why except another Mother. I must be careful not to seem to prefer Margaret above the rest, and all the more because she is my own sister. But last night I really had some directions to give her, and I summoned her to my cell. When I had told her what I wanted, I was about to dismiss her with "Pax tibi!" as usual, but Margaret's talking eyes told me she had something to say.

I said,—"Well! what is it, Margaret?"

"May I speak to my sister Annora for a moment, and not to the Mother?" she asked, with a look half amused and half sad.

"Thou mayest always do that, dear heart," said I.

(I hope it was not wicked.)

"Then—Annora, for whom is the Lady Joan looking?"

"Looking! I understand thee not, Margaret."

"I think it is either thou or I," she replied. "Sister Anne told me that she asked her if there were not some Sisters of the Despenser family here, and wished to have them pointed out to her: and she said to Sister Anne, 'She whom I seek was professed as a very little child.' That must be either thou or I, Annora. What can she want with us?"

"Verily, Margaret, I cannot tell."

"I wondered if she might be a niece of ours."

"She may," said I. "I never thought of that. There is something about her eyes that reminds me of some one, but who it is I know not."

"Thou couldst ask her," suggested Margaret.

"I scarcely like to do that," said I. "But I will think about it, Margaret."

I was wicked enough to kiss her, when I let her go.

This morning Sister Ada told me that the Lady Joan had asked leave to learn illuminating, so she would spend her mornings henceforth in the illumination chamber. That will bring her with Margaret, who is much there. Perchance she may tell her something.

It would be strange to see a niece or cousin of one's very own! I marvel if she be akin to us. Somehow, since I had that night watch with Margaret, my heart does not feel exactly the dry, dead thing it used to do in times past. I fancy I could love a kinswoman, if I had one.

Sister Gaillarde said such a strange thing to me to-day. I was remarking that the talk in the recreation-room was so often vapid and foolish—all about such little matters: we never seemed to take an interest in any great or serious subject.

"Sister Annora," said she, with one of her grim smiles, "I always looked to see you turn out a reformer."

"Me!" cried I.

"You," said she.

"But a reformer is a great, grand man, with a hard head, and a keen wit, and a ready tongue!" said I.

"Why should it not be a woman with a soft heart?" quoth Sister Gaillarde.

"Ha, jolife!" cried I. "Sister Gaillarde, you may be cut out for a reformer, but I am sure I am not."

I looked up as I spoke, and saw the Lady Joan's dark grey eyes upon me.

"What is to be reformed. Mother?" said she.

"Why, if each of us would reform herself, I suppose the whole house would be reformed," I answered.

"Capital!" said Sister Gaillarde. "Let's set to work."

"Who will begin?" said Sister Ismania.

"Every body will be the second," replied Sister Gaillarde, "except those who have begun already: that's very plain!"

"I expect every body will be the last," said Margaret.

Sister Gaillarde nodded, as if she meant Amen.

"Well, thank goodness, I want no reforms," said Sister Ada.

"Nor any reforming?" said Sister Gaillarde.

"Certainly not," she answered. "I always do my duty—always. Nobody can lay any thing else to my charge." And she looked round with an air that seemed to say, "Deny it if you can!"

"It is manifest," observed Sister Gaillarde gravely, "that our Sister Ada is the only perfect being among us. I am not perfect, by any means: and really, I feel oppressed by the company of a seraph. I'm not nearly good enough. Perchance, Sister Ada, you would not mind my sitting a little further off."

And actually, she rose and went over to the other side of the room. Sister Ada tossed her head,—not as I should expect a seraph to do: then she too rose, and walked out of the room. Sister Ismania had laughingly followed Sister Gaillarde: so that the Lady Joan, Margaret, and I, were alone in that corner.

"My mother had a Book of Evangels," said the Lady Joan, "in which I have sometimes read: and I remember, it said, 'be ye perfect,' The priests say only religious persons can be perfect: yet our Lord, when He said it, was not speaking to them, but just to the common people who were His disciples, on the hill-side. Is it the case, that we could all be perfect, if only we tried, and entreated the grace of our Lord to enable us to be so?"

"Did your Ladyship ever know any who was?" asked Margaret.

The Lady Joan shook her head. "Never—not perfect. My mother was a good woman enough; but there were flaws in her. She was cleverer than my father, and she let him feel it. He was nearer perfection than she, for he was humbler and gentler—God rest his sweet soul! Yet she was a good woman, for all that: but—no, not perfect!"

Suddenly she ceased, and a light came in her eyes.

"You two," she said, looking on us, "are the Despenser ladies, I believe?"

We assented.

"Do you mind telling me—pardon me if I should not ask—which of you was affianced, long years ago, to the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, sometime Earl of Pembroke?"

"Sometime!" ah me, then my lost love is no more!

I felt as though my tongue refused to speak. Something was coming— what, I did not know.

Margaret answered for me, and the Lady Joan's hand fell softly on mine.

"Did you love each other," she said, "when you were little children? If so, we ought to love each other, for he was very dear to me. Mother Annora, he was my father."

"You!" I just managed to say.

"Ah, you did, I think," she said, quietly. "He died a young man, in the first great visitation of the Black Death, over twenty years ago: and my mother survived him twenty years. She married again, and died three years since."

Margaret asked what I wanted to hear. I was very glad, for I felt as if I could ask nothing. It was strange how Margaret seemed to know just what I wished.

"Who was your mother, my Lady?"

The Lady Joan coloured, and did not answer for a moment. Then she said,—"I fear you will not like to know it: yet it was not her fault, nor his. Queen Isabel arranged it all: and she hath answered for her own sins at the Judgment Bar. My mother was Agnes de Mortimer, daughter of the Earl of March."

"Why not?" said Margaret.

"Ah, then you know not. I scarce expected a Despenser to hear his name with patience. But I suppose you were so young—Sisters, he was the great enemy of your father."

So they wedded my lost love to the daughter of my enemy! Almost before the indignation rose up within me, there came to counteract it a vision of the cross of Calvary, and of Him who said, "Father, forgive them!" The momentary feeling of anger died away. Another feeling took its place: the thought that the after-bond was dissolved now, and death had made him mine again.

"Mother Annora," said the Lady Joan's soft voice, "will you reject me, and look coldly on me, if I ask whether you can love me a little? He used to love to talk to me of you, whom he remembered tenderly, as he might have remembered a little sister that God had taken. He often wondered where you were, and whether you were happy. And when I was a little child, I always wanted to hear of that other child—you lived, eternal, a little child, for me. Many a time I have fancied that I would make retreat here, and try to find you out, if you were still alive. Do you think it sinful to love any thing?—some nuns do. But if not, I should like you to love the favourite child of your lost love."

"Methinks," said Margaret, quietly, "it is true in earthly as in heavenly things, and to carnal no less than spiritual persons, 'Major horum est caritas.'" [First Corinthians 13, verse 13.]

I hardly know what I said. But I think Joan was satisfied.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Her thoughts wandered to her married sister, Isabel Lady Hastings and Monthermer, who lived at Marlborough Castle.

Note 2. The last native Princess of Wales, being the only (certainly proved) child of the last Prince Llywelyn, and Alianora de Montfort. She was thrust into the convent at Sempringham with her cousin Gladys.



PART THREE, CHAPTER 4.

MORTIFYING THE WILL.

"L'orgueil n'est jamais mieux deguise, et plus capable de tromper, que lorsqu'il se cache sous la figure de l'humilite."

Rochefoucauld.

"Oh, you have no idea how happy we are here!" said Sister Ada to Joan. "I often pity the people who live in the world. Their time is filled with such poor, mean things, and their thoughts must be so frivolous. Now our time is all taken up with holy duties, and we have no room for frivolous thoughts. The world is shut out: it cannot creep in here. We are the happiest of women."

I happened to look at Sister Gaillarde, and I saw the beginning of one of her grim smiles: but she did not speak.

"Some of you do seem happy and peaceful," said Joan (she says I am to call her Joan). "But is it so with all?"

Sister Gaillarde gave her little Amen nod.

"Oh dear, yes!" answered Sister Ada. "Of course, where the will is not perfectly mortified, there is not such unbroken bliss as where it is. But when the rule of holy obedience is fully followed out, so that we have no will whatever except that of our superiors, you cannot imagine what sweet peace flows into the soul. Now, if Father Benedict were to command me any thing, I should be positively delighted to do it, because it was a command from my superior. It would not in the least matter what it was. Nay, the more repugnant it was to my natural inclinations, the more it would delight me."

Joan's eyes wandered to two or three other faces, with a look which said, "Do you agree to this?"

"Don't look at me!" said Sister Gaillarde. "I'm no seraph. It wouldn't please me a bit better to have dirty work to do because Father Benedict ordered it. I can't reach those heights of perfection—never understood them. If Sister Ada do, I'm glad to hear it. She must have learned it lately."

"I do not understand it, as Sister Ada puts it," said I, as Joan's eyes came to me. "I understand what it is to give up one's will in any thing when it seems to be contrary to the will of God, and to have more real pleasure in trying to please Him than in pleasing one's self. I understand, too, that there may be more true peace in bearing a sorrow wherein God helps and comforts you, than in having no sorrow and no comfort. But Sister Ada seems to mean something different—as if one were to be absolutely without any will about any thing, and yet to delight in the crossing of one's will. Now, if I have not any wall, I do not see how it is to be crossed. And to have none whatever would surely make me something different from a woman and a sinner. I should be like a harp that could be played on—not like a living creature at all."

Two or three little nods came from Sister Gaillarde.

"People who have no wills are very trying to deal with," said Margaret.

"People who have wills are," said Sister Philippa.

"Nay," said Margaret, "if I am to be governed, let it be by one that has a will. 'Do this,' and 'Go there,' may be vexatious at times: but far worse is it to ask for direction, and hear only, 'As you like,' 'I don't know,' 'Don't ask me.'"

"Now that is just what I should like," said Sister Philippa. "I never get it, worse luck!"

"Did you mean me, Sister Margaret?" said Sister Ada, stiffly.

"I cry you mercy, Mother; I was not thinking of you at all," answered Margaret.

"It sounded very much as if you were," said Sister Ada, in her iciest fashion. "I think, if you had been anxious for perfection, you would not have answered me in that proud manner, but would have come here and entreated my pardon in a proper way. But I am too humble-minded to insist on it, seeing I am myself the person affronted. Had it been any one else, I should have required it at once."

"I said—" Margaret got so far, then her brow flushed, and I could see there was an inward struggle. Then she rose from the form, and laying down her work, knelt and kissed the ground at Mother Ada's feet. I could hear Sister Roberga whisper to Sister Philippa, "That mean-spirited fool!"

Sister Gaillarde said in a softer tone than is her wont,—"Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum." [Matthew 5, verse 3.]

"Thank you, Sister Gaillarde," said Sister Ada, quickly. "I scarcely expected recognition from you."

"You got as much as you expected, then," said Sister Gaillarde, drily, with a look across at me which almost made me laugh.

"I told you, I got more than I expected," was Sister Ada's answer.

"Did you mean it for her?" asked Joan, in so low a voice that only those on each side of her could hear.

"I meant it for whoever deserved it," was Sister Gaillarde's reply.

Just then Mother Joan came in and sat down.

"Sister Ada," she said, "Sister Marian tells me, that my Lady has given orders for that rough black rug that nobody likes to be put on your bed this week."

"No, has she?" cried Sister Ada, in tones which, if she were delighted, very much belied her feelings. "How exceedingly annoying! What could my Lady be thinking of? She knows how I detest that rug. I shall not be able to sleep a wink. Well! I suppose I must submit; it is my duty. But I do feel it hard that all the disagreeable things should come to me. Surely one of the novices might have had that; it would have been good for somebody whose will was not properly mortified. Really, I do think—Oh, well, I had better not say any more."

Nor did she: but that night, as I was going round the children's dormitory, little Damia looked up at me.

"Mother, dear, what's the matter with Mother Ada?"

"What did she say, my child?"

"Oh, she didn't say any thing; but she has looked all day long as if she would like to hit somebody."

"Somebody vexed her a little, perhaps," said I. "Very likely she will be all right to-morrow."

"I don't know—she takes a long while to come right when any body has put her wrong—ever so much longer than you or Sister Margaret. The lightning comes into Sister Margaret's eyes, and then away it runs, and she looks so sorry that she let it come; and you only look sorry without any lightning. But Mother Ada looks I don't know how—as if she'd like to pull all the hair off your head, and all your teeth out of your mouth, and wouldn't feel any better till she'd done it."

I laughed, and told the child to go to sleep, and not trouble her little head about Mother Ada. But when I came into my cell, I began to wonder if Sister Ada's will is perfectly mortified. It does not look exactly like it.

Before I had done more than think of undressing, Sister Gaillarde rapped at my door.

"Sister Annora, may I have a little chat with you?"

"Do come in, Sister, and sit down," said I.

"This world's a very queer place!" said Sister Gaillarde, sitting down on my bed. "It would not be a bad place, but for the folks in it: and they are as queer as can be. I thought I'd just give you a hint, Sister, that you might feel less taken by surprise—I expect you'll have a lecture given you to-morrow."

"What have I done?" I asked, rather blankly.

Sister Gaillarde laughed till the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh dear, the comicality of folks in this world!" saith she. "Sister Annora, do you know that you are a very carnal person?"

"Indeed, I have always feared so," said I, sorrowfully.

"Rubbish!" said Sister Gaillarde in her most emphatic style. "Don't, for mercy's sake, be taken in by such nonsense. It is a wonder what folks can get into their heads when they have nothing else in them! Sister Ada is very much concerned about the low tone of spirituality which she sees in you—stupid baggage! She is miserably afraid you are a long way off perfection. I'm more concerned a deal about her."

"But, Sister Gaillarde, it is true!" said I. "I am very, very far from being perfect, and I fear I never shall be."

"Well!" saith she, "if I had to go into the next world holding on to somebody's skirts, I'd a sight rather they were yours than Sister Ada's. I do think some folks were born just to be means of grace and nothing else. Maybe it is as well some of them should get into nunneries."

"Some are rather trying, I must admit," said I. "Sister Roberga—"

"Oh, Sister Roberga! she's just a butterfly and no better. Brush her off—she's good for no more. But she isn't one that tries me like some other folks. You did not hear what happened yesterday between Sisters Ada and Margaret?"

"No. What was it?"

"Some of the Sisters were talking about hymns in recreation. Sister Margaret said she admired the Dies Irae. Sister Ada wanted to know what she admired; she could not see any thing to admire; it was just a jingle of words, and nothing else. The rhymes might be good to remember by—that was all. I saw the look on Sister Margaret's face: of course she did not answer the Mother. But I did. I told her that I believed if any one showed her a beautiful rose, she would call it a red vegetable. 'Well,' quoth she, 'and what is it else? I never smell a rose or any other flower. We were put here to mortify our senses.' 'Sister Ada,' said I, 'the Lord took a deal of pains for nothing, so far as you were concerned.' Well, she said that was profane: but I don't believe it. The truth is, she's just one of those dull souls that cannot see beauty, nor smell fragrance, nor hear music; and so she assumes her dulness as virtue, and tries to make it out that those who have their senses are carnal and worldly. But just touch her pride, and doesn't it fly up in arms! Depend upon it, Sister Annora, men are quite as often taken for fools because they can see what other folks can't, as because they can't see what other folks can."

"I dare say that is true," said I. "But—forgive me, Sister Gaillarde— ought we to be talking over our Sisters?"

"Sister Annora, you are too good for this world!" she answered, rather impatiently. "If one may not let out a bit, just now and then, what is one to do?"

"But," said I, "we were put here to mortify ourselves."

"We were put here to mortify our sins," said she: "and wala wa! some of us don't do it. I dare say old Gaillarde's as bad as any body. But I cannot stand Sister Ada's talk, when she wants to make every creature of us into stones and stocks. She just inveighs against loving one another because she loves nobody but Ada Mansell, and never did. Oh! I knew her well enough when we were young maids in the world. She was an only child, and desperately spoiled: and her father joined in the Lancaster insurrection long ago, and it ruined his fortunes, so she came into a convent. That's her story. Ada Mansell is the pivot of her thoughts and actions—always will be."

"Nay," said I; "let us hope God will give her grace to change, if it be as you say."

"It'll take a precious deal of grace to change some folks!" said Sister Gaillarde, satirically. "Hope many of them won't want it at once, or there'll be such a run upon the treasury there'll be none left for you and me. Well! that's foolish talk. My tongue runs away with me now and then. Don't get quite out of patience with your silly old Sister Gaillarde. Ah! perhaps I should have been a wiser woman, and a better too, if something had not happened to me that curdled the milk of my human kindness, and sent me in here, just because I could not bear outside any longer—could not bear to see what had been mine given to another—well, well! We are all poor old sinners, we Sisters. And as to perfection—my belief is that any woman may be perfect in any life, so far as that means having a true heart towards God, and an honest wish to do His will rather than our own—and I don't believe in perfection of any other sort. As to all that rubbish men talk about having no will at all, and being delighted to mortify your will, and so forth—my service to the lot of it. Why, what you like to have crossed isn't your will; what you delight in can't be mortification. It is just like playing at being good. Eh, dear me, there are some simpletons in this world! Well, good-night, Sister: pax tibi!"

Sister Gaillarde's hand was on the latch when she looked back.

"There, now I'm forgetting half of what I had to tell you. Father Hamon's going away."

"Is he?—whither?"

"Can't say. I hope our next confessor will be a bit more alive."

"Father Benedict is alive, I am sure."

"Father Benedict's a draught of vinegar, and Father Hamon's been a bowl of curds. I should like somebody betwixt."

And Sister Gaillarde left me.

She guessed not ill, for I had my lecture in due course. Sister Ada came into my cell—had she bidden me to hers, I should have had a chance to leave, but of course I could not turn her forth—and told me she had been for long time deeply concerned at my want of spiritual discernment. "Truly, Sister, no more than I am," said I. "Now, Sister, you reckon me unkindly, I cast no doubt," saith she: "but verily I must be faithful with you. You take too much upon you,—you who are but just promoted to your office—and are not ready enough to learn of those who have had more experience. In short, Sister Annora, you are very much wanting in true humility."

"Indeed, Sister Ada, it is too true," said I. "I beseech you, Sister, to pray that you may have your eyes opened to the discerning of your faults," saith she. "You are much too partial and prejudiced in your governance of the Sisters, and likewise with the children. Some you keep not under as you should; and to others you grant too little freedom."

"Indeed, Sister, I am afraid it may be so, though I have tried hard to avoid it."

"Well, Sister, I hope you will think of these things, and that our Lord may give you more of the grace of humility. You lack it very much, I can assure you. I would you would try to copy such of us as are really humble and meek."

"That I earnestly desire, Sister," said I: "but is it not better to copy our Lord Himself than any earthly example? I thank you for your reproof, and I will try harder to be humble."

"You know, Sister," said she, as she was going forth, "I have no wish but to be faithful. I cannot bear telling others of their faults. Only, I must be faithful."

"I thank you, Sister Ada," said I.

So away she went. Sister Gaillarde said when she saw me, with one of her grim smiles—

"Well! is the lecture over? Did she bite very hard?"

"She saith I am greatly lacking in meekness and humility, and take too much on myself," said I: "and I dare say it is true."

"Humph!" said Sister Gaillarde. "It would be a mercy if some folks weren't. And if one or two of us had a trifle more self-assertion, perhaps some others would have less."

"Have I too much self-assertion, Sister?" I said, feeling sorry it should be thus plain to all my Sisters. "I will really—"

Sister Gaillarde patted me on the shoulder with her grimmest smile.

"You will really spoil every body you come near!" said she. "Go your ways, Sister Annora, and leave the wasps in the garden a-be."

"Why, I do," said I, "without they sting me."

"Exactly!" said Sister Gaillarde, laughing, and away. I know not what she meant.

Mother Joan is something troubled with her eyes, and the leech thinks it best she should no longer be over the illumination-room, but be set to some manner of work that will try the sight less. So I am appointed thereto in her stead. I cannot say I am sorry, for I shall see more of Joan, since in this chamber she passes three mornings of a week. I mean my child Joan, for verily she is the child of mine heart. And my very soul yearns over her, for Sister though I be, I cannot help the thought that had it not been for Queen Isabel's unjust dealing, I should have been her mother. May the good Lord forgive me, if it be sin! I know now, that those deep grey eyes of hers, with the long black lashes, which stirred mine heart so strangely when she first came hither, are the eyes of my lost love. I knew in myself that I had known such eyes aforetime, but it seemed to be long, long ago, as though in another world. Much hath Joan told me of him; and all I hear sets him before me as man worthy of the best love of a good woman's heart, and whom mine heart did no wrong to in its enduring love. And I am coming to think— seeing, as it were, dimly, through a mist—that such love is not sin, neither disgrace, even in the heart of a maid devoted unto God. For He knoweth that I put Him first: and take His ordering of my life, as being His, not only as just and holy, but as the best lot for me, and that which shall be most to His glory and mine own true welfare. I say not this openly, nor unto such as should be likely to misconceive me. There are some to whose pure and devoted souls all things indifferent are pure; and they are they that shall see God. And man saith that in the world there are some also, unto whose vile and corrupt hearts all things indifferent are impure; and maybe not in the world only, but by times even in the cloister. So I feel that some might misread my meaning, and take ill advantage thereof; and I keep my thoughts to myself, and to God. I never ask Joan one question touching him of whom I treasure every bye-note that she uttereth. Yet I know not how it is, but she seems to love to tell me of him. Is it by reason she hath loved, that her heart hath eyes to see into mine?

Not much doth Joan say of her mother to me: I think she names her more to others. Methinks I see what she was—a good woman as women go (and some of them go ill), with a little surface cleverness, that she reckoned to run deeper than it did, and inclined to despise her lord by reason his wit lay further down, and came not up in glittering bubbles to the top. I dare reckon she looked well to his bodily comforts and such, and was a better wife than he might have had: very likely, a better than poor Alianora La Despenser would have made, had God ordered it thus. Methinks, from all I hear, that he hath passed behind the jasper walls: and I pray God I may meet him there. They wed not, nor be given in marriage, being equal unto the angels: but surely the angels love.

Strange talk it was that Joan held with me yesterday. I marvel what it may portend. She says, of late years many priests have put forth writings, wherein they say that the Church is greatly fallen away from the verity of Scripture, and that all through the ages good men have said the same (as was the case with the blessed Robert de Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln, over two hundred years gone, and with the holy Thomas de Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury, and with Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole, whose holy meditations on the Psalter are in our library, and I have oft read therein): but now is there further stir, as though some reforming of the Church should arise, such as Bishop Grosteste did earnestly desire. Joan says her lord is earnest for these new opinions, and eager to promote them: and that he saith that both in the Church and in matters politic, men sleep and nap for a season, during which slow decay goes on apace, and then all at once do they wake up, and set to work to mend matters. During the reign of this present King, saith he, the world and the Church have had a long nap; and now are they just awake, and looking round to see how matters are all over dust and ivy, which lack cleansing away. Divers, both clerks and laymen, are thus bestirring themselves: the foremost of whom is my Lord of Lancaster, the King's son [John of Gaunt], among the lay folk, and among the clergy, one Father Wycliffe [Note 1], that was head of a College at Oxenford, and is now Rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He saith (that is, Father Wycliffe) that all things are thus gone to corruption by reason of lack of the salt preservative to be found in Holy Scripture. Many years back, did King Alfred our forefather set forth much of the said Scriptures in the English tongue; as much, indeed, as he had time, for his death hindered it, else had all the holy hooks been rendered into our English tongue. But now, by reason of years, the English that was in his day is gone clean out of mind, and man cannot understand the same: so there is great need for another rendering that man may understand now. And this Father Wycliffe hopes to effect, if God grant him grace. But truly, some marvellous strange notions hath he. Joan says he would fain do away with all endowing of the Church, saying that our Lord and the Apostles had no such provision: but was that by reason it was right, or because of the hardness of men's hearts? Surely the holy women that ministered to Him of their substance did well, not ill. Moreover, he would have all monkery done away, yea, clean out of the realm, and he hath mighty hard names for monks, especially the Mendicant Friars: yet of nuns was he never heard to speak an unkindly word. Strange matter, in good sooth! it nearly takes away my breath but to hear tell of it. But when he saith that the Pope should have no right nor power in this realm of England, that is but what the Church of England hath alway held: Bishop Grosteste did as fervently abhor the Pope's power—"Egyptian bondage" was his word for it. Much has this Father also to say against simony: and he would have no private confession to a priest (verily, this would I gladly see abolished), nor indulgences, nor letters of fraternity, nor pilgrimages, nor guilds: and he sets his face against the new fashion of singing mass [intoning, then a new invention], and the use of incense in the churches. But strangest of all is it to hear of his inveighing against the doctrine of the Church that the sacred host is God's Body. It is so, saith he, in figure, and Christ's Body is not eaten of men save ghostly and morally. And to eat Christ ghostly is to have mind of Him, how kindly He suffered for man, which is ghostly meat to the soul. [Arnold's English Works of Wycliffe, Volume 2, pages 93, 112.]

Here is new doctrine! Yet Father Wycliffe, I hear, saith this is the old doctrine of the Apostles themselves, and that the contrary is the new, having never (saith he) been heard of before the time of one Radbert, who did first set it forth five hundred years ago [in 787]: and after that it slumbered—being then condemned of the holy doctors—till the year of our Lord God 1215, when the Pope that then was forced it on the Church. Strange matter this! I know not what to think.

Joan says some of these new doctrine priests go further than Father Wycliffe himself, and even cast doubt on Purgatory and the worship [this word then merely meant "honour"] of our Lady. Ah me! if they can prove from God's Word that Purgatory is not, I would chant many thanksgivings thereon! All these years, when I knew not if my lost love were dead or alive, have I thought with dread of that awful land of darkness and sorrow: yet not knowing, I could have no masses sung for him; and had I been so able, I could never have told for whom they were, but only have asked for them for my father and mother and all Christian souls, and have offered mine own communion with intention thereto. Ay, and many a time—dare I confess it?—I have offered the same with that intent, if he should be to God commanded [dead]—knowing that God knew, and humbly trusting in His mercy if I did ill. But for the worship of our Lady, that is passing strange, specially to me that am religious woman. For we were always taught what a blessing it was that we had a woman to whom we might carry our griefs and sorrows, seeing God is a man, and not so like to enter into a woman's feelings. But these priests say—I am almost afraid to write it—this is dishonouring Christ who died for us, and who therefore must needs be full of tenderness for them for whom He died, and cannot need man nor woman—not even His own mother—to stand betwixt them and Him. O my Lord, have I been all these years dishonouring Thee, and setting up another, even though it be Thy blessed mother, between Thee and me? Yet surely He regardeth her honour full diligently! Said He not to Saint John, "Behold thy mother?"—and doth not that Apostle represent the whole Church, who are thereby commanded to regard her, each righteous man, as his own very mother? [This is the teaching of the Church of Rome.] I remember the blessed Hermit of Hampole scarcely makes mention of her: it is all Christ in his book. And if it be so—of which Joan ensures me—in the Word of God, whereof she hath read books that I have missed—verily, I know not what to think.

Lord, Thou wist what is error! Save me therefrom. Thou wist what is truth: guide me therein!

It would seem that I have erred in offering my communions at all. For if to eat Christ's Body be only to have mind of Him—and this is according to His own word, "Hoc facite in meam commemorationem"—how then can there be at all any offering of sacrifice in the holy mass? Joan says that Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews saith that we be hallowed by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once, and that where remission is, there is no more oblation for sin. Truly we have need to pray, Lord, guide us into Thy truth! and yet more, Lord, keep us therein! I must think hereon. In sooth, this I do, and then up rises some great barrier to the new doctrine, which I lay before Joan: and as quickly as the sun can break forth and melt a spoonful of snow, does she clear all away with some word of Saint Paul. She has his Epistles right at her tongue's end. For instance, quoth I,—"Christ said He should bestow the Holy Spirit, to lead the Church into all truth. How then can the Church err?"

"What Church?" said she, boldly. "The Church is all righteous men that hold Christ's words: not the Pope and Cardinals and such like. These last have no right to hold the first in bondage."

"But," said I, "Father Benedict told me Saint Paul bade the religious to obey their superiors: how much more all men to obey the Church?"

"I marvel," saith she, "where Father Benedict found that. Never a word says Paul touching religious persons: there were none in his day."

"No religious in Paul's day!" cried I.

"Never so much as one," saith she: "not a monk, not a nun! Friar Pareshull himself told me so much; he is a great man among us. Saint Peter bids the clergy not to dominate over inferiors; Saint Paul says to the Ephesians that out of themselves (he was speaking to the clergy) should arise heretics speaking perversely; and Saint John says, 'Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits if they be of God.' Dear Mother Annora, we are nowhere bidden in Scripture to obey the Church save only once, and that concerns the settling of a dispute betwixt two members of it. Obey the Church! why, we are ourselves the Church. Has not Father Rolle taught you so much? 'Holy Kirk,' quoth he—'that is, ilk righteous man's soul.' Verily, all Churches be empowered of Christ to make laws for their own people: but why then must the Church of England obey laws made by the Bishop of Rome?"

"Therein," said I, "can I fully hold with thee."

"And for all things," she said earnestly, "let us hold to God's law, and take our interpretation of it not from men, but straight from God Himself. Lo! here is the promise of the Holy Ghost assured unto the Church—to you, to me, to each one that followeth Christ. They that keep His words and are indwelt of His Spirit—these, dear Mother, are the Church of God, and to them is the truth promised."

I said nought, for I knew not what to answer.

"There is yet another thing," saith Joan, dropping her voice low. "Can that be God's Church which contradicts God's Word? David saith 'Over all things Thou hast magnified Thy Name' [Note 2]: but I have heard of a most wise man, that could read ancient volumes and dead tongues, that Saint Hierome set not down the true words, namely, 'Over all Thy Name Thou hast magnified Thy Word.' Now, if this be so—if God hath set up His Word over all His Name—the very highest part of Himself—how dare any assemblage of men to gainsay it? What then of these indulgences and licences to sin, which the Popes set forth? what of their suffering them to wed whom God has forbidden, and forbidding it to priests to whom God has suffered it? Surely this is the very thing which God points at, 'teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'"

"But, Joan," said I, "my dear heart, did not our Lord say, 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven?' Surely that authorises the Church to do as she will."

"Contrary unto God's Word? It may give her leave to do her will within the limits of the Word: I trow not contrary thereto. When the King giveth plenipotentiary powers to his Keeper of the Great Seal, his own deposing and superseding, I reckon, are not among them. 'All things are subject unto Christ,' saith Paul; 'doubtless excepting Him which did subject all things unto Him.' So, if God give power of loosing and binding to His Church, it cannot be meant that she shall bind Himself who thus endowed her, contrary to His own will and law."

I answered nought, again, for a little while. At last I said, "Joan, there is a word that troubles me, and religious folks are always quoting it. 'If a man hate not his father and his mother'—and so forth—he cannot be our Lord's disciple. I think I have heard it from one or another every week since I came here. What say these new doctrine folks that it means?"

"Ours are old doctrines, Mother dear," saith she; "as old as the Apostles of Christ. What means it? Why, go forth to the end, and you will see what it means: he is to hate his own soul also. Is he then to kill himself, or to go wilfully into perdition? Nay, what can it mean, but only that even these dearest and worthiest loves are to be set below the worthier than them all, the love of the glory of God? That our Lord never meant a religious person should neglect his father and mother, is plainly to be seen by another word of His, wherein he rebukes the priests of His day, because they taught that a man might bestow in oblation to God what his father's or his mother's need demanded of him. Here again, he reproves them, because they rejected the command of God in order to keep their own tradition. You see, therefore, that when the Church doth this, it is not ratified in Heaven."

"Then," said I, after a minute's thought, "I am not bidden to hate myself, any more than my relations?"

"Why should we hate one whom God loveth?" she answered. "To hate our selfishness is not to hate ourselves."

I sat a while silent, setting red eyes and golden claws to my green wyvern, and Joan ran the white dots along her griffin's tail. When she came to the fork of the tail, she laid down her brush.

"Mother," she saith—the dear grey eyes looking up into my face—"shall we read together the holy Scripture, and beseech God to lead us into all truth?"

"Dear child, we will do so," said I. "Joan, didst thou ever read in holy Scripture that it was wicked to kiss folks?"

She smiled. "I have read there of one," saith she, "who stole up behind the holiest of all men that ever breathed, and kissed His feet: and the rebuke she won from Him was no more than this: 'Her many sins are forgiven her, and she loved much.' So, if a full sinful woman might kiss Christ without rebuke, methinks, if it please you, Mother dear, you might kiss me."

Well, I knew all my life of that woman, but I never thought of it that way before, and it is marvellous comforting unto me.

My Lady sent this morning for all the Mothers together. Mine heart went pitter-patter, as it always doth when I am summoned to her chamber. It is only because of her office: for if she were no more than a common Sister, I am sorely afraid I should reckon her a selfish, lazy woman: but being Lady Prioress, I cannot presume to sit in judgment on my superiors thus far. We found that she had sent for us to introduce us to the new confessor, whose name is Father Mortimer, he is tall, and good-looking (so far as I, a Sister, can understand what is thought to be so in the world), and has dark, flashing eyes, which remind me of Margaret's, and I should say also of that priest that once confessed us, did I not feel certain that this is the same priest himself. He will begin his duties this evening at compline.

Sister Gaillarde said to me as we came forth from my Lady,—"Had I been a heathen Greek, and lived at the right time, methinks I should have wed Democritus."

"Democritus! who was he?" said I.

"He was named the Laughing Philosopher," said she, "because he was ever laughing at men and things. And methinks he did well."

"What is there to laugh at, Sister Gaillarde?"

"Nothing you saw, Saint Annora."

"Now you are laughing at me," said I, with a smile.

"My laugh will never hurt you," answered she. "But truly, betwixt Sister Ada and the peacock—They both spread their plumes to be looked at. I wonder which Father Mortimer will admire most."

"You surely never mean," said I, much shocked, "that Sister Ada expects Father Mortimer to admire her!"

"Oh, she means nothing ill," said Sister Gaillarde. "She only admires Ada Mansell so thoroughly herself, that she cannot conceive it possible that any one can do otherwise. Let her spread her feathers—it won't hurt. Any way, it will not hurt him. He isn't that sort of animal."

Indeed, I hope he is not.

When my Lady dismissed us, I went to my work in the illumination-room, where Joan, with Sister Annot and Sister Josia, awaited my coming. I bade Sister Josia finish the Holy Family she was painting yesterday for a missal which we are preparing for my Lord's Grace of York; I told Sister Annot to lay the gold leaf on the Book of Hours writing for my Lady of Suffolk; and as Margaret, who commonly works with her, was not yet come, I began myself to show Joan how to coil up the tail of a griffin—she said, to put a yard of tail into an inch of parchment. It appeared to amuse her very much to see how I twisted and interlaced the tracery, so as to fill up every little corner of the parallelogram. When the outline was drawn, and she began to fill it with cobalt, as I sat by, she said suddenly yet softly—

"Mother Annora, I have been considering whether I should tell you something."

"Tell me what, dear child?" quoth I.

"I am afraid," said she, "I shocked you yesterday, making you think I was scarcely sound in the faith. Yet where can lie the verity of the faith, if not in Holy Writ? And I marvelled if it should aggrieve you less, if you knew one thing—yet that might give you pain."

"Let me hear it, Joan."

"Did you know," said she, dropping her voice low, "that it was in part for heresy that your own father suffered death?"

"My father!" cried I. "Joan, I know nothing of my father, save only that he angered Queen Isabel, and for what cause wis I not."

"For two causes: first, because the King her husband loved him, and she was of that fashion that looked on all love borne by him as so much robbed from herself. But the other was that very thing—that she was orthodox, and he was—what the priests called an heretic. There might be other causes: some men say he was proud, and covetous, and unpitiful. I know not if it be true or no. But that they writ him down an heretic, as also they did his father, and Archdeacon Baldok—so much I know."

I felt afraid to ask more, and yet I had great longing to hear it.

"And my mother?" said I. I think I was like one that passes round and round a matter, each time a little nearer than before—wishing, and yet fearing, to come to the kernel of it.

"I have heard somewhat of her," said Joan, "from the Lady Julian my grandmother. She was a Leybourne born, and she wedded my grandfather, Sir John de Hastings, whose stepmother was the Lady Isabel La Despenser, your father's sister. I think, from what she told me, your mother was a little like—Sister Roberga."

I am sorely afraid I ought not to have answered as I did, for it was—"The blessed saints forfend!"

"Not altogether," said Joan, with a little laugh. "I never heard that she was ill-tempered. On the contrary, I imagine, she was somewhat too easy; but I meant, a little like what Mother Gaillarde calls a butterfly—with no concern for realities—frivolous, and lacking in due thought."

"Was your grandmother, the Lady Julian, an admirer of these new doctrines?" said I.

"They were scarcely known in her day as they have been since," said Joan; "only the first leaves, so to speak, were above the soil: but so far as I can judge from what I know, I should say, not so. She was a great stickler for old ways and the authority of the Church."

"And your mother?" I was coming near delicate ground, I felt, now.

"Oh! she, I should say, would have liked our doctrines better. Mother Annora, is there blue enough here, or shall I put on another coat?"

Joan looked up at me as she spoke. I said I thought it was deep enough, and she might now begin the shading. Her head went down again to her work.

"My mother," said she, "was no bigot, nor did she much love priests; I dare venture to say, had Father Wycliffe written then as he has now, she would somewhat have supported him so far as lay in her power. But my father, I think, would have loved these doctrines best of all. I have heard say he spoke against the ill lives of the clergy, and the idle doings of the Mendicant Friars: and little as I was when he departed to God, I can myself remember that he used to tell me stories of our Lord and the ancient saints and patriarchs, which I know, now that I can read it, to have come out of God's Word. Ay, methinks, had he lived, he would have helped forward this new reformation of doctrine and manners."

"Reformation!" cries Mother Ada, entering the chamber. "I would we could have a reformation in this house. What my Lady would be at, passeth me to conceive. She must think I have two pairs of eyes and six pairs of hands, if no more. Do but guess, Sister Annora, what she wants to have done."

"Nay, that I cannot," said I. I foresaw some hard work, for my Lady is one who leaves things to go as they list for ever so long, and then, suddenly waking up, would fain turn the house out o' windows ere one can shut one's eyes.

"Why, if she did not send for me an hour after we came out, and said the condition of the chapel was shameful; how could we have let it get into such a state? Father Mortimer was completely scandalised at the sight of it. All the holy images were all o'er cobwebs, and all—"

"And all of a baker's dozen of blessed times," said Sister Gaillarde, entering behind, "have I been at her for new pails and brushes, never speak of soap. I told her a spider as big as a silver penny had spun a line from Saint Peter's key to Saint Katherine's nose; and as to the dust—why, you could make soup of it. I've dusted Saint Katherine many a time with my hands, for I had them, if I'd nought else: and trust me, the poor Saint looked so forlorn, I fairly wondered she did not speak. Had I been the image of a saint, somebody would have heard of it, I warrant you, when that spider began scuttering up and down my nose."

"And now she bids us drop every thing, and go and clean out the chapel, this very morning—to have done by vesper time! Did you ever hear such a thing?" said Sister Ada, from the bench whereon she had sunk.

"Mother Ada," said Sister Josia, "would you show me—"

"Mercy on us, child, harry not me!" cried Sister Ada.

"But I do not know whether a lily should be in this corner by the blessed Mary," said Sister Josia, "or if the ass should stand here."

"The lily, by all means," said Sister Gaillarde. "Prithee paint not an ass: there's too many in this world already."

"I do wish Father Mortimer would attend to his own business!" cried Sister Ada, "or that we had old Father Hamon back again. I do hate these new officers: they always find fault with every thing."

"Ay, new brooms be apt to sweep a bit too clean," replied Sister Gaillarde. "Mary love us, but I would we had a new broom! I don't believe there are twenty bristles left of the old one."

Joan looked up from her griffin's tail to laugh.

"Well, what is to be done?"

"Oh, I suppose we must do as we are bid," saith Sister Ada in a mournful voice. "But, dear heart, to think of it!"

"How many pails have you, Sister Ada?"

"There's the large bouget, and the little one. The middle-sized one is broken, but it will hold some water."

"Two and a half, then," answered Sister Gaillarde. "Well, fetch them, Sister, and I will go and see to the mops. I think we have a mop left. Perhaps, now, if we din our needs well into my Lady's ears, we may get one or two more. But, sweet Saint Felicitas! is there any soap?"

"Half a firkin came in last week," responded Sister Ada. "You forget, Sister Gaillarde, the rule forbids us to ask more than once for anything."

"The rule should forbid Prioresses to have short memories, then. Come, Sister Annot, leave that minikin fiddle-faddle, and come and help with the real work. If it is to be done by vespers, we want all the hands we can get. I will fetch Sister Margaret to it; she always puts her heart into what she has to do. Well, you look sorely disappointed, child: I am sorry for it, but I cannot help it. I have no fancy for such vanities, but I dare say you like better sticking bits of gold leaf upon vellum than scrubbing and sweeping."

"Sister Annot, I am ashamed of you!" said Sister Ada. "Your perfection must be very incomplete, if you can look disappointed on receiving an order from your superior. You ought to rejoice at such an opportunity of mortifying your will."

"That's more than I've done," said Sister Gaillarde. "Well, Sister Ada, as you don't offer to move, I suppose we had better leave you here till you have finished rejoicing over the opportunity. I hope you'll get done in time to take advantage of it. Come, Sister Annot."

I thought I had better follow. So, having given Joan a few directions to enable her to go on for a time without superintendence, I went to see after the water-bougets, which should have been Sister Ada's work. She called after me—"Sister Annora, I'll follow you in a moment. I have not quite finished my rosary."

I left her there, telling her last few beads, and went to fetch the bougets, which I carried to the chapel, just as Sister Gaillarde came in with her arms full, followed by Margaret and Annot.

"I've found two mops!" she cried. "Mine was all right, but where Sister Ada keeps hers I cannot tell. Howbeit, Sister Joan has one. Now, Sister Annora, if you will bring yours—And see here, these brushes have a few bristles left—this is a poor set-out, though. It'll do to knock off spiders. Now, Sister Margaret, fetch that long ladder by the garden door. Sister Annot, you had better go up,—you are the lightest of us, and I am not altogether clear about that ladder, but it is the only one we have. Well-a-day! if I were Pr—Catch hold of Saint James by the head, Sister Annot, to steady yourself. Puff! faugh! what a dust!"

We were all over dust in a few minutes. I should think it was months since it had been disturbed, for my Lady never would order the chapel to be cleaned. We worked away with a will, and got things in order for vespers. Sister Annot just escaped a bad fall, for a rung of the ladder gave way, and if she had not clutched Saint Peter by the arm, down she would have come. Howbeit, Saint Peter held, happily, and she escaped with a bruise.

Just as things were getting into order, and we had finished all the dirty work, Sister Ada sauntered in.

"Well, really," said Sister Gaillarde, "I did not believe you could truly rejoice in the mortification of your will till I saw how long it took you! Thank you, the mortification is done; you will have to wait till next time: I only hope you will let this rejoicing count. There's nothing left for you, but to empty the slops and wipe out the pails."

Joan told me afterwards, in a tone of great amusement, that "Mother Ada finished her beads very slowly, and then said she would go after you. But she stopped to look at Sister Annot's work, and at once discovered that if left in that state it would suffer damage before she came back. So she sat down and wrought at that for above an hour. Then she was just going again, but she found that an end of the fringe was coming off my robe, and she fetched needle and thread of silk, and sewed it on. The third time she was just going, when she saw the fire wanted wood. So she kept just going all day till about half an hour before vespers, and then at last she contrived to go."

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Note 1. I may here ask pardon for an anachronism in having brought Wycliffe forward as a Reformer some years before he really began to be so. The state of men's minds in general was as I have described it; the uneasy stir of coming reformation was in the air; the pamphlet which is so often (but wrongly) attributed to Wycliffe, The Last Age of the Church, had been written some fifteen years before this time: but Wycliffe himself, though then a political reformer, did not come forward as a religious reformer until about six years later.

Note 2. Psalm 138 verse 2, Vulgate. The Authorised Version correctly follows the Hebrew—"Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy Name."



PART THREE, CHAPTER 5.

WAITING.

"If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God's workings see, We could interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key.

"But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart! God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold: We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.

"And if through patient toil we reach the land Where tired feet with sandals loose may rest, When we shall clearly see and understand, I think that we shall say—'God knew the best.'"

When we came out from the chapel after vespers, my Lady commanded Sister Gaillarde to follow her. The rest of us went, of course, to the work-room, where Sister Gaillarde joined us in about half an hour. I saw that she looked as though she had heard something that greatly amused her, but we could know nothing till we reached the recreation-room.

The minute our tongues were loosed, Sister Ada attacked Sister Gaillarde as to what my Lady wanted with her. With one of her grim smiles, Sister Gaillarde replied—

"My Lady is about to resign her office."

A storm of exclamations greeted the news.

"Why, Sister? Do tell us why."

"She finds," said Sister Gaillarde, gravely, "the burden of her official duties too heavy."

"I marvel what she reckons them to be!" quoth Sister Joan, who, though not sarcastic in the style of Sister Gaillarde, can now and then say a biting thing. "So far as I ever made out, her duties are to sit on cushions and bid other folks work."

"Exactly: and that is too much labour for her."

"Which of us will be chosen in her stead, I marvel!" said Sister Ada, briskly. "I trust it may be one who will look better to her house than the present Lady has done."

"Amen," said Sister Gaillarde, with a mischievous air. "I hope it will be Sister Joan."

"Truly, I hope not," answered the Sister: "for if any such honour came my way (which I expect not), I should feel it my duty to decline it on account of my failing sight."

"Then you see, my Sisters," quoth Sister Ada, quickly, "to vote for Mother Joan would be to no good."

"It would be little good to vote for Mother Ada," I heard a voice whisper behind me; and another replied, "She thinks we all shall, I warrant."

I feel little doubt that Sister Gaillarde will be the one chosen. One of us four it is most likely to be: and the sub-Prioress is oftener chosen than the rest. Sister Gaillarde, methinks, would make a good Prioress.

We had scarcely recovered from our surprise, and had not half finished our talk, when the bell rang for compline: and silence fell on all the busy tongues. All the young Sisters, and the postulants, were eager to catch a glimpse of Father Mortimer; and I saw a good deal of talk pass from eyes to eyes, in the few minutes before the service began. He sings full well, and is most seemly in his ordering of matters. If he be as discreet in the confessional as in his outer ministrations, methinks I shall like him well. Howbeit, he made a deal less impression than he would have done before my Lady's intention was announced. When we filed out of the chapel, and assembled again in the recreation-room, the tongues were set loose, and I could see that the main stream of talk ran on my Lady; only one here and there diverging to Father Mortimer. I sought out Joan, and asked if our new confessor were any kin to her. She could not tell me, beyond saying that she has three uncles and several cousins in the priesthood; but since, saving her uncle Walter, she has never seen any of them, she could not speak certainly without asking himself.

I marvel I have not seen Margaret all this even, now I come to think. I was so taken up with the news concerning my Lady that I never thought to look for her: and in chapel she sits on the Epistle side, as I do, so that I see her not.

This morrow my Lady called us into conclave, and made known her resignation, which she has already tendered to the Master: and bade us all farewell. She will not tarry with us, but goes into the daughter house at Cambridge; this somewhat surprises me, though I see it does not Sister Gaillarde.

"There'll be more stir there," said she.

"Think you my Lady likes stir?" said I. "I have always reckoned her one that loved not to be stirred."

"Soothly," said Sister Gaillarde: "yet she loveth well to sit on her cushions, and gaze on the stir as a peep-show."

A few hours later we were all again assembled in conclave, and the Master himself with us, for election of a new Prioress. And after the mass of the Holy Ghost we Mothers went round to gather up the votes. It fell as I looked, and Sister Gaillarde is elected. In all the house there were only nine that voted otherwise, and of these four were for Sister Joan, two for Sister Ismania, and one each for Sisters Ada, Isabel, and myself. I feel sure that mine was Margaret's: and Joan says she is certain Sister Ada's was her own. I voted, as before, for Sister Gaillarde, for truly I think her fittest of all for the place. Her ordination fallows next week.

"Verily," said Sister Ada, the next time we were at recreation, "I do marvel at Sister Gaillarde's manner of taking her election. Not one word of humility or obedience, but just took it as if it were her right, and she were the most suitable person!"

"Why, that was obedience, was it not?" responded Sister Ismania.

"Obedience it might be, but it was not lowliness!" said Sister Ada, tartly. "If I had been elect—of course I do not mean that I expected such a thing, not for a moment—I should have knelt down and kissed the chapel floor, and protested my sense of utter unworthiness and incapacity for such an office."

Sister Isabel, who sat by me, said in a low voice,—"Maybe some of your Sisters would have agreed with you." And though I felt constrained to give her a look of remonstrance, I must say I thought with her. Sister Ada as Prioress would have been a sore infliction.

But now Sister Gaillarde herself came forward. I do not think Sister Ada had known she was there, to judge from her change of colour.

"Sister Ada," said she, "you are one of those surface observers who always fancy people do not feel what they do not say. Let me answer you once for all, and any who think with you. As a sinner before God, I do feel mine unworthiness, even to the lowest depth: and I am bound to humble myself for all my sins, and not least for the pride which would fain think them few and small. But as for incapacity, I do not feel that; and I shall not say what I do not feel. I think myself quite capable of governing this house—I do not say as well as some might do it, but as well as most would do; and it would be falsehood and affectation to pretend otherwise. I suppose, in condemning hypocrisy, our Lord did not mean that while we must not profess to be better than we are, we may make any number of professions, and tell any number of falsehoods, in order to appear worse than we are. That may be your notion of holiness; but suffer me to say, it is not my notion of honesty. I mean to try and do my duty; and if any of my Sisters thinks I am not doing it, she will confer a favour on me if she will not talk it over with the other Sisters, but come straight to my rooms and tell me so. I promise to consider any such rebukes, honestly, as before God; and if on meditation and prayer I find that I have been wrong, I will confess it to you. But if I think that it was simply done out of spite or impertinence, that Sister will have a penance set her. I hope, now, we understand each other: and I beg the prayers of you all that I may rule in the fear of God, showing neither partiality nor want of sympathy, but walking in the right way, and keeping this house pure from sin."

Sister Ada made no answer whatever. Sister Ismania said, with much feeling—

"Suffer me, Mother, to answer for the younger Sisters, and I trust the Mothers will pardon me if I am over ready. Sure am I that the majority of my Sisters will consent to my reply. We will indeed pray that you may have the grace of perseverance in good works, and will strive to obey your holy directions in the right path. I ask every Sister who will promise the same to say 'Placet.'"

There was a storm of Placets in response. But unless I was mistaken, Sister Ada and Sister Roberga were silent.

It was while she was answering "Placet" that I caught sight of Margaret's face. What had happened to make her look thus white and wan, with the expressive eyes so full of tears behind them, which she could not or would not shed? I sat in pain the whole day until evening, and the more because she seemed rather to avoid me. But at night, when we had parted, and all was quiet in the dormitories, a very faint rap came at the door of my cell. I bade the applicant enter in peace: and Margaret presented herself.

"Annora!" she said, hesitating timidly.

I knew what that meant.

"Come to me, little Sister," I said.

She came forward at once, closing the door behind her, and knelt down at my feet. Then she buried her face in her hands, and laid face and hands upon my knee.

"Let me weep!" she sobbed. "Oh, let me weep for a few moments in silence, and do not speak to me!"

I kept silence, and she wept till her heart was relieved. When at last her sobs grew quiet, she brushed her tears away, and looked up.

"Bless thee, Annora! That has done me good. It is something to have somebody who will say, 'Little Sister,' and give one leave to weep in peace. Dost thou know what troubles me?"

"Not in the least, dear Margaret. That something was troubling thee I had seen, but I cannot guess what it was."

"I shall get over it now," she said. "It is only the reopening of the old wound. Thou hast not guessed, then, who Father Mortimer is?"

"Margaret!"

"Ay, God has given my Roland back to me—yet has not given him. It is twenty years since we parted, and we are no longer young—nor, I hope, foolish. We can venture now to journey on, on opposite sides of the way, without being afraid of loving each other more than God. There can hardly be much of the road left now: and when it is over, the children will meet in the safe fellowship of the Father's Home for ever. Dost thou know, Annora dear, I am almost surprised to find myself quite so childish? I thought I should have borne such a meeting as calmly as any one else,—as calmly as he did." There was a little break in her voice. "He always had more self-control than I. Only I dare not confess to him, for his own sake. He would be tempted either to partiality, or to too much severity in order to avoid it. I must content myself with Father Benedict: and when I want Roland's teaching—those blessed words which none ever gave to me but himself—wilt thou give me leave to tell thee, so that thou mayest submit the matter to him in thine own confession?"

I willingly agreed to this: but I am sorry for my poor child. Father Benedict is terribly particular and severe. I think Father Mortimer could scarcely be more so, however hard he was trying not to be partial. And I cannot help a little doubt whether his love has lasted like hers. Sweet Saint Mary! what am I saying? Do I not know that every sister, every priest, in this house would be awfully shocked to know that such a thing could be? It is better it should not. And yet—my poor child!

This house no longer holds a Sister or Mother Gaillarde. She is now Lady Prioress, having been ordained and enthroned this afternoon. I must say the ceremony of vowing obedience felt to me less, not more, than that simple Placet the other day, which seemed to come red-hot from the hearts that spake it.