ice, forbidding--hopped gaily nearer, pecking eagerly. No
gaping mouths now waited his return. His nestlings were grown and
flown. At last he could afford to feast himself.

Mother Sub-Prioress turned her back upon the coping and stared at the
archway opposite. She had no wish to see the bird's enjoyment.

Then a strange thing happened.

Having pecked up all he wanted, the robin turned his bright eye upon
the motionless figure, seated so near him, wrapped in the aloofness of
an impenetrable silence.

Excepting in her dying moments, Mary Antony's much loved little bird
had never adventured nearer to her than to hop along the coping,
pecking at her fingers when, to test his boldness, she reached out and
with them covered the cheese.

Yet now, with a gentle flick of wings, lo, he alighted on the knee of
Mother Sub-Prioress! Then, while she scarce dared breathe, for wonder
and amaze, hopped to her arm and pecked gently at her veil.

Whereupon something broke in the cold heart of Mother Sub-Prioress.
Tears ran slowly down the thin face. She would not stir nor lift her
hand to wipe them away, and they fell in heavy drops upon her folded
fingers.

At length she spoke, in a broken whisper.

"Oh, thou little winged thing," she said, "who so easily could'st fly
from me! Dost thou use those wings of liberty to draw yet nearer? In
this place of high walls and narrow cells, they who have not full
freedom, use to the full what freedom they possess, to turn, at my
approach and fly from me. Not one if she could choose, would choose to
come to me. . . . Is there any honour so great as that of being feared
by all? Is there any loneliness so great as by all to be hated? That
honour, little bird, is mine; also that loneliness. Who then hath sent
thee thus to essay to take both from me?"

Heavy tears continued to fall upon the clasped hands; the worn face was
distorted by mental suffering. The frozen soul of Mother Sub-Prioress
having melted, the iron of self-knowledge was entering into it, causing
the dull ache of a pain unspeakable. Yet she dared not sob, lest the
heaving of her bosom should frighten away the little bird perched so
lightly on her arm.

This evidence of the trust in her of a little living thing, was the one
rope to which Mother Sub-Prioress clung in those first moments, during
which the black waters of remorse and despair passed over her head--a
rope made of frail enough strands, God knows: brigh