her level brows, looking away to the
overhanging branches of the Pieman's tree. "How quickly, in these
places, we lose the very remembrance of the meaning of personal, human
love. We grow so soon accustomed to allowing ourselves to dwell only
upon the abstract or the divine."

"That is a loss," said the Bishop. He turned and began to pace slowly
toward the cloister; "a grievous loss, my daughter. Sooner than that
you should suffer that loss, beyond repair, I would let the daring
Knight of the Bloody Vest carry you off on swift wing. Better a
robin's nest, if, love be there, than a nunnery full of dead hearts."

He heard the quick catch of her breath, but gave her no chance to speak.

"'And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three,'" quoted the Bishop;
"'but the greatest of these is love.'"

They were moving through the cloisters. The Prioress turned in the
doorway, pausing that the Bishop might pass in before her.

"This, my lord," she said, with a fine sweep of her arm, "is the abode
of Faith and Hope, and also of that divine Love, which excelleth both
Hope and Faith."

"Nay," said the Bishop, "I pray you, listen. 'Love suffereth long, and
is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up;
doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily
provoked, thinking no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things. Love never faileth.' Methinks," said the Bishop,
in a tone of gentle meditation, as he entered the Prioress's cell, "the
apostle was speaking of a most human love; yet he rated it higher than
faith and hope."

"Are you still dwelling upon Sister Mary Seraphine, my lord?" inquired
the Prioress, and in her voice he heard the sound of a gathering storm.

"Nay, my dear Prioress," said the Bishop, seating himself in the
Spanish chair, and laying his biretta upon the table near by; "I speak
not of self-love, nor does the apostle whose words I quote. I take it,
he writes of human love, sanctified; upborne by faith and hope, yet
greater than either; just as a bird is greater than its wings, yet
cannot mount without them. We must have faith, we must have hope; then
our poor earthly loves can rise from the lower level of self-seeking
and self-pleasing and take their place among those things that are
eternal."

The Prioress had placed her chair opposite the Bishop. She wa