d.

Mother Sub-Prioress never could see a naked babe without experiencing a
feeling of irritation against those who had failed to provide it with
suitable clothing. Possibly this was why she had hurriedly looked the
other way if her eye chanced to fall upon the beautiful sculpture in
the Prioress's cell.

Now, for the first time, she really saw it.

She stood and gazed; then knelt, and tried to understand.

The tenderness reached her heart and shook it. The encircling arms,
the loving breast, the watchful mother-eyes; the exquisite human love,
called forth by the necessity, the dependence, the helplessness of a
little child.

And were there not souls equally helpless, and hearts just as dependent
upon sympathy and tenderness?

The Prioress had understood this, and had ruled by love.

But Mother Sub-Prioress had ever preferred the briers and the burning.

She recalled a conversation she had had a day or two before with the
Prior and the Chaplain, when they came to consult with her concerning
the future of the Community, and her possible appointment. In speaking
of the late Prioress, the Prior had said: "She ever seemed as one
apart, who walked among the stars; yet full, to overflowing, of the
milk of human kindness and the gracious balm of sympathy." He had then
asked Mother Sub-Prioress if she felt able to follow in her steps. To
which Mother Sub-Prioress, vexed at the question, had answered, tartly:
Nay; that she knew no Milky Way! Whereupon Father Benedict, a sudden
gleam of approval on his sinister face, had interposed, addressing the
Prior: "Nay, verily! Our excellent Sub-Prioress knows no Milky Way!
She is the brier, which hath sharply taught the tender flesh of each.
She is the bed of nettles from which the most weary moves on to rest
elsewhere. She is the fearsome burning, from which the frightened
brands do snatch themselves!"

These words, spoken in approbation, had been meant to please; and at
first she had been flattered. Then the look upon the kind face of the
Prior, had given her the sense of being shut up with Father Benedict in
a fearsome Purgatory of their own making--nay rather, in a hell, where
pity, mercy, and loving-kindness were unknown.

Perhaps this was the hour when the change of mind in Mother
Sub-Prioress really had its beginning, for Father Benedict's terrible
yet true description of her methods and her rule, now came forcefully
back to her.

Putting out a trembling hand