"The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your
mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My
white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon.
Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride
for penance; and incidentally"--an irrepressible little smile crept
round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his
eyes--"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness
from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!"
said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should
be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind of
which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of God's
'whosoever' and, passing through the narrow gate, enter the Kingdom of
Heaven as little children."
The Bishop rose, and giving his hand to the Prioress raised her to her
feet.
"My lord," she said, "as ever you are most kind to me. Yet I fear you
have been too lenient for my own peace of mind. To have destroyed in
anger the mandate of His Holiness----"
"Nay, my daughter," said the Bishop. "The mandate of His Holiness,
inscribed upon parchment, from which hangs the great seal of the
Vatican, is safely placed among my most precious documents. You have
but destroyed the result of an hour's careful work. I rose betimes
this morning to make this copy. I should not have allowed you to tear
it, had not the writing been my own.
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