p _six_ peas,
saying that I had found _six_ and not _five_ in my wallet."

"Let us pause," said the Bishop, "and look at this lily. How lovely
are its petals. How tall and white it shews against the hedge. Why
did you need to set the Reverend Mother's mind at rest, Sister Antony,
by carrying up six peas?"

"Because," said the old lay-sister, "when I had counted as they
returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another
passed making twenty-one. Upon which I ran and reported to the
Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was
Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over
fifty years numbered with the Dead. Yet many a time, just before dawn,
have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time--tap!
tap! tap! But what good would there be in opening to a poor lady you
helped thrust into her shroud, nigh upon sixty years before? So 'Tap
away!' says I; 'tap away, Sister Agatha! Try Saint Peter at the gates
of Paradise. Old Antony knows better than to let you in.'"

"What said the Reverend Mother when you reported on a twenty-first
White Lady?" asked the Bishop.

"Reverend Mother bid me begone, while she herself dealt with the wraith
of Sister Agatha."

"And why did you _not_ go?" asked the Bishop, quietly.

Completely taken aback, Mary Antony's ready tongue failed her. She
stood stock still and stared at the Bishop. Her gums began to rattle
and she clapped her knuckles against them, horror and dismay in her
eyes.

The Bishop looked searchingly into the frightened old face, and there
read all he wanted to know. Then he smiled; and, taking her gently by
the arm, paced on between the yew hedges.

"Sister Antony," he said, and the low tones of his voice fell like
quiet music upon old Antony's perturbed spirit; "you and I, dear Sister
Antony, love the Reverend Mother so truly and so faithfully, that there
is nothing we would not do, to save her a moment's pain. _We_ know how
noble and how good she is; and that she will always decide aright, and
follow in the footsteps of our blessed Lady and all the holy saints.
But others there are, who do not love her as we love her, or know her
as we know her; and they might judge her wrongly. Therefore we must
tell to none, that which we know--how the Reverend Mother, alone, dealt
with that visitor, who was not the wraith of Sister Agatha."

Mary Antony peeped up at the Bishop. A light of g