"
She and the Bishop had indeed been wise and prudent in their own
estimation, as they discussed this difficult problem. Yet to them no
clear light, no Divine vision, had been vouchsafed.
It was to this aged nun, the most simple--so thought the Prioress--the
most humble, the most childlike in the community, that the revelation
had been given.
The Prioress remembered the nosegay of weeds offered to our Lady; the
games with peas; the childish pleasure in the society of the robin; all
the many indications that second-childhood had gently come at the close
of the long life of Mary Antony; just as the moon begins as a sickle
turned one way and, after coming to the full, wanes at length to a
sickle turned the other way; so, after ninety years of life's
pilgrimage, Mary Antony was a little child again--and of such is the
Kingdom of Heaven; and to such the Divine will is most easily revealed.
The Prioress was conscious that she and the Bishop--the wise and
prudent--had so completely arrived at decisions, along the lines of
their own points of view, that their minds were not ready to receive a
Divine unveiling. But the simple, childlike mind of the old
lay-sister, full only of humble faith and loving devotion, was ready;
and to her the manifestation came.
No shade of doubt as to the genuineness of the vision entered the mind
of the Prioress. She and the Bishop alone knew of the Knight's
intrusion into the Nunnery, and of her interview with him in her cell.
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