"Have patience with me, Reverend Mother, and I will tell you
all."
The Prioress gently stroked the worn hands lying outside the coverlet.
Mary Antony looked very old in bed. Were it not for the bright twinkling
eyes, she looked too old ever again to stand upon her feet. Yet how she
still bustled upon those same old feet! How diligently she performed her
own duties, and shewed to the other lay-sisters how they should have
performed theirs!
Forty years ago, she had chosen her nook in the Convent burying-ground.
She was even then, among the older members of the Community; yet most of
those who saw her choose it, now lay in their own.
"She will outlive us all," said Mother Sub-Prioress one day, sourly;
angered by some trick of Mary Antony's.
"She is like an ancient parrot," cried Sister Mary Rebecca, anxious to
agree with Mother Sub-Prioress.
Which when Mary Antony heard, she chuckled, and snapped her fingers.
"Please God, I shall live long enough," she said, "to thrust Mother
Sub-Prioress into a sackcloth shroud; also, to crack nuts upon the
sepulchre of Sister Mary Rebecca."
But none of these remarks reached the Prioress. She loved the old
lay-sister, knowing the aged body held a faithful and zealous heart, and
a mind which, in its quaint simplicity, oft seemed to the Prioress like
the mind of a little child--and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
"There is no need for patience, dear Antony," said the Prioress.
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