ght, 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."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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
unea