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 u