'"
"And who," asked the Bishop, his eyes upon a peach which he was peeling
with extreme care; "who, my daughter, was the babe?"
"The old lay-sister, Mary Antony."
"Ah," murmured the Bishop, "an ancient babe. Yet truly, a most worthy
babe. Almost, I should be inclined to say, a wise and prudent babe."
"Nay, my Lord Bishop," cried Mora, with a sharp decision of tone which
made it please him to imagine that, should he look up from the peach,
he would see the severe lines of the wimple and scapulary: "you and I
were the wise and prudent, arguing for and against, according to our
own theories and reason. But to this babe, our Lady vouchsafed a clear
vision."
"Tell me of it," said the Bishop, splitting his peach and removing the
stone which he carefully washed, and slipped into his sash. The Bishop
always kept peach stones, and planted them.
She told him. She began at the beginning, and told him all, to the
minutest detail; the full description of Hugh--the amazingly correct
repetition, in the vision, of the way in which she and Hugh had
actually kneeled together before the shrine of the blessed Virgin, of
their very words and actions; and, finally, the sublime and gracious
tenderness of our Lady's pronouncement, clearly heard at the close of
the vision, by the old lay-sister: "Take her; she hath been ever thine.
I have but kept her for thee."
"What say you to that, Reverend Father?" exclaimed Mora, concluding.
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