The White Ladies of Worcester. Florence Louisa Barclay

she bent, and gently kissed the little feet of the holy Babe.

      Then, as was her wont, she sounded the bell which called the entire community to arise, and to begin a new day.

      CHAPTER VIII

      ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM

      In the afternoon of that day, Mary Antony awaited, in the cloisters, the return of the White Ladies from Vespers. Twenty only, had gone; and, fearful lest she should make mistake with the unusual number, the old lay-sister spent the time of waiting in counting the twenty peas afresh, passing them back and forth from one hand to the other.

      Mother Sub-Prioress was still unable to leave her bed.

      Sister Mary Augustine stayed to tend her.

      Sister Teresa was in less pain, but fevered still, and strangely weak.

      The Reverend Mother forbade her to rise.

      Shortly before the bell rang calling the nuns to form procession in the cloisters, Sister Seraphine declared herself unable for the walk, and begged to be allowed to remain behind. The Prioress found herself misdoubting this sudden indisposition of Sister Seraphine who, though flushed and excited, shewed none of the usual signs of sickness.

      Not wishing, however, to risk having a third patient upon her hands, the Reverend Mother gave leave for her to stay, but also elected to remain behind, herself; letting Sister Mary Rebecca, who had recovered from her indisposition, lead the procession.

      Thus the Reverend Mother contrived to keep Sister Seraphine with her during the absence of the other nuns, giving her translations from the Sacramentaries to copy upon strips of vellum, until shortly before the hour when the White Ladies would return from Vespers, when she sent her to her cell for the time of prayer and meditation.

      Left alone, the Prioress examined the copies, fairly legible, but sadly unlike her own beautiful work. She sighed and, putting them away, rose and paced the room, questioning how best to deal with the pretty but wayward young nun.

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      Two definite causes led the Prioress to mistrust Sister Seraphine: one, that she had called upon "Wilfred" to come and save her, and had admitted having expected him to appear and carry her off before she made her final profession; the other, that she had tried to start an evil report concerning the old lay-sister, Mary Antony. The Prioress pondered what means to take in order to bring Sister Seraphine to a better mind.

      As the Prioress walked to and fro, unconsciously missing the daily exercise of the passage to the Cathedral, she noted a sudden darkening of her chamber. Going to the window, she saw the sky grown black with thunder clouds. So quickly the storm gathered, that the bright summer world without seemed suddenly hung over with a deep purple pall.

      Birds screamed and darted by, on hurried wing; then, reaching home, fell silent. All nature seemed to hold its breath, awaiting the first flash, and the first roll of thunder.

      Still standing at her window, the Prioress questioned whether the nuns were returned, and safely in their cells. While underground they would know nothing of it; but they loved not passing along the cloisters in a storm.

      The Prioress wondered why she had not heard the bell announcing their return, and calling to the hour of prayer and silence. Also why Mary Antony had not brought in the key and her report.

      Thinking to inquire into this, she turned from the window, just as a darting snake of fire cleft the sky. A crash of thunder followed; and, at that moment, the door of the chamber bursting open, old Mary Antony, breathless, stumbled in, forgetting to knock, omitting to kneel, not waiting leave to speak, both hands outstretched, one tightly clenched, the other holding the great key: "Oh, Reverend Mother!" she gasped. Then the stern displeasure on that loved face silenced her. She dropped upon her knees, ashen and trembling.

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      Now the Prioress held personal fear in high scorn; and if, after ninety years' experience of lightning and thunder, Mary Antony was not better proof against their terrors, the Prioress felt scant patience with her. She spoke sternly.

      "How now, Mary Antony! Why this unseemly haste? Why this rush into my presence; no knock; no pause until I bid thee enter? Is the storm-fiend at thy heels? Now shame upon thee!"

      For only answer, Mary Antony opened her clenched hand: whereupon twenty peas fell pattering to the floor, chasing one another across the Reverend Mother's cell.

      The Prioress frowned, growing suddenly weary of these games with peas.

      "Have the Ladies returned?" she asked.

      Mary Antony grovelled nearer, let fall the key, and seized the robe of the Prioress with both hands, not to carry it to her lips, but to cling to it as if for protection.

      With the clang of the key on the flags, a twisted blade of fire rent the sky.

      As the roar which followed rolled away, echoed and re-echoed by distant hills, the old lay-sister lifted her face.

      Her lips moved, her gums rattled; the terror in her eyes pleaded for help.

      This was the moment when it dawned on the Prioress that there was more here than fear of a storm.

      Stooping she laid her hands firmly, yet with kindness in their strength, on the shaking shoulders.

      "What is it, dear Antony?" she said.

      "Twenty White Ladies went," whispered the old lay-sister. "I counted them. Twenty White Ladies went; but——"

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      "Well?"

      "Twenty-one returned," chattered Mary Antony, and hid her face in the Reverend Mother's robe.

      Two flashes, with their accompanying peals of thunder passed, before the Prioress moved or spoke. Then raising Mary Antony she placed her in a chair, disengaged her robe from the shaking hands, passed out into the cell passage, and herself sounded the call to silence and prayer.

      Returning to her cell she shut the door, poured out a cordial and put it to the trembling lips of Mary Antony. Then taking a seat just opposite, she looked with calm eyes at the lay-sister.

      "What means this story?" said the Prioress.

      "Reverend Mother, twenty holy Ladies went——"

      "I know. And twenty returned."

      "Aye," said the old woman more firmly, nettled out of her speechlessness; "twenty returned; and twenty peas I dropped from hand to hand. Then—when no pea remained—yet another White Lady glided by; and with her went an icy wind, and around her came the blackness of the storm.

      "Down the steps I fled, locked the door, and took the key. How I mounted again, I know not. As I drew level with the cloisters, I saw that twenty-first White Lady, for whom—Saint Peter knows—I held no pea, passing from the cloisters into the cell passage. As I hastened on, fain to see whither she went, a blinding flash, like an evil twisting snake, shot betwixt her and me. When I could see again, she was gone. I fled to the Reverend Mother, and ran in on the roar of the thunder."

      "Saw you her face, Mary Antony?"

      "Nay, Reverend Mother. But, of late, the holy Ladies mostly walk by with their faces shrouded."

      "I know. Now, see here, dear Antony. Two peas dropped together, the while you counted one."

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      "Nay, Reverend Mother. Twenty peas dropped one by one; also I counted twenty White Ladies. And, after I had counted twenty, yet another passed."

      "But how could that be?" objected the Prioress. "If twenty went, but twenty could return. Who should be the twenty-first?"

      Then old Mary Antony leaned forward, crossing herself.

      "Sister Agatha," she whispered, tremulously. "Poor Sister Agatha returned to us again."

      But, even as she said it, swift came a name to the mind of