reat joy was on her
face. Her eyes had lost their look of terror, and began to twinkle
cunningly.

"I know naught," she said. "I saw naught; I heard naught."

The Bishop smiled.

"How many peas were left in your wallet, Sister Antony ?"

"Five," chuckled Mary Antony.

"Why did you shew six to the Reverend Mother?"

"To set her mind at rest," whispered the old lay-sister.

"To cause her to think that you had heard naught, seen naught, and knew
naught?"

Mary Antony nodded, chuckling again.

"Faithful old heart!" said the Bishop. "What gave thee this thought?"

"Our blessed Lady, in answer to her petition, sharpened the wits of old
Antony."

The Bishop sighed. "May our blessed Lady keep them sharp," he
murmured, half aloud.

"Amen," said Mary Antony with fervour.

CHAPTER XXVI

LOVE NEVER FAILETH

The Bishop awaited the Prioress on that stone seat under the beech,
from which the robin had carried off the pea.

He saw her coming through the sunlit cloisters.

As she moved down the steps, and came swiftly toward him, he was
conscious at once of an indefinable change in her.

Had that ride upon Icon set her free from trammels in which she had
been hitherto immeshed?

As she reached him, he took both her hands, so that she should not
kneel.

"Already I have been received with obeisance, my daughter," he said;
and told her of old Mary Antony's quaint little figure, standing to do
the honours in the doorway.

The Prioress, at this, laughed gaily, and in her turn told the Bishop
of the scene, on this very spot, when old Antony displayed her peas to
the robin.

"What peas?" asked the Bishop; and so heard the whole story of the
twenty-five peas and the daily counting, and of the identifying of
certain of the peas with various members of the Community. "And a
large, white pea, chosen for its fine aspect, was myself," said the
Prioress; "and, leaving the Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca,
Master Robin swooped down and flew off with me! Hearing cries of
distress, I hastened hither, to find Mary Antony denouncing the robin
as 'Knight of the Bloody Vest,' and making loud lamentations over my
abduction. Her imaginings become more real to her than realities."

"She hath a faithful heart," said the Bishop, "and a shrewd wit."

"Faithful? Aye," said the Prioress, "faithful and loving. Yet it is
but lately I have realised, the love, beneath her carefulness and
devotion." The Prioress bent