Yet, if any needs must be ill,
'twere easier to tend the holy Ladies in their cells, than the Poor, in
humble homes, outside the Convent walls, tossing on beds of rushes.'
"'Tush, fool!' snarled Mother Sub-Prioress. "'The Poor are not easily
made ill.'
"Tush indeed! I tell thee, little bright-eyed man, old Antony, can
'tush' to better purpose! That night there were strong purging herbs
in the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress. Yet she did but keep her bed for
one day. Like the Poor, she is not easily made ill! . . . Well, have
thy way; only peck not my fingers, Master Robin, or I will have thee
flogged through the Tything at the cart-tail, as was done to a certain
pieman, whose history I will now relate.
"Once upon a time, when Sister Mary Antony was young, and fair to look
upon--Nay, wink not thy naughty eye----"
At that moment came the sound of a key turning slowly in the lock of
the door at the bottom of the steps leading from the crypt to the
cloister.
CHAPTER III
THE PRIORESS PASSES
A key turned slowly in the lock of the oaken door at the entrance to
the underground way.
The old lay-sister seized her wallet and pulled out the bag of peas.
Below, the heavy door swung back upon its hinges.
Mary Antony dropped upon her knees to the right of the steps, her hands
hidden beneath her scapulary, her eyes bent in lowly reverence upon the
sunlit flagstones, her lips mumbling chance sentences from the Psalter.
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