lf more than she can harm others.

"By stirring up the mud in a dark pool, you dim the reflection of the
star which, before, shone bright within it. But you do not dim the
star, shining on high.

"So is it with the slanderous thoughts of evil minds. They stir up
their own murkiness; but they fail to dim the stars.

"We must bear with Sister Mary Rebecca."

"Go not nigh them, Reverend Mother," begged old Antony. "I will tend
them with due care and patience. These pains in bones, and general
shiverings, are given quickly from one to another. I pray you, go not
near. Remember--_you_ were taken--alas! alas!--and _they_ were left!"

At this the Prioress laughed, gaily.

"But I was not taken decently, with pains in my bones and a-bed, dear
Antony. I was carried off by a bold, bad man--thy Knight of the Bloody
Vest."

"Oh, pray!" cried the old lay-sister. "I fear me it is an omen. The
angel Gabriel, Reverend Mother, sent to bear you from earth to heaven.
'The one shall be taken, and the other left.' Ah, if he had but flown
off with Mother Sub-Prioress!"

The Prioress laughed again. "Dear Antony, thy little bird took the
first pea he saw. Had there but been a crumb, or a morsel of cheese,
he would have left thee thy white pea. . . Hark how he sings his
little song of praise! . . . Is it not wonderful to call to mind how,
centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks,
the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men
were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when
churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God
undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes
sang, 'Do it now--Do it now,' as they sought food for their young, the
blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing. Aye,
and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily
plumaged birds, here--in these Isles--the robin redbreast sang, and all
our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young;
living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how
to do.

"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this
our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved
cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will
stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in
this very garden--if it be a garden still--the r