"
The Prioress smiled. She began to understand.
The robin burst into a stream of triumphant song. At which, old Mary
Antony, still kneeling, shook her uplifted fist.
The Prioress raised and drew her to the seat.
"Now sit thee here beside me," she said, "and make full confession.
Ease thine old heart by telling me the entire tale. Then I will pass
sentence on the robin if, true to his name, he turns out to be a thief."
So there, in the Convent garden, while the robin sang overhead, the
Prioress listened to the quaint recital; the dread of making mistake in
the daily counting; the elaborate plan of dropping peas; the manner in
which the peas became identified with the personalities of the White
Ladies; the games in the cell; the taming of the robin; the habit of
sharing with the little bird, interests which might not be shared with
others, which had resulted that morning in the display of the peas, and
this undreamed of disaster--the abduction of the Reverend Mother.
The Prioress listened with outward gravity, striving to conceal all
signs of the inward mirth which seized and shook her. But more than
once she had to turn her face from the peering eyes of Mary Antony,
striving anxiously to gather whether her chronicle of sins was placing
her outside the pale of possible forgiveness.
The Prioress did not hasten the recital. She knew the importance, to
the mind with which she dealt, of even the most trivial detail.
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