the old woman said she was sorry she was not a nun,
and hoped that Christ would not think less of her. As far as mortal sin
was concerned she could say she had never committed one. At the bottom
of the window there were suffering souls. The cauldrons that Biddy
wished to see them in, the agent said, would be difficult to
introduce--the suffering of the souls could be artistically indicated
by flames.

"I shall have great joy," she said, "seeing the blessed women standing
about our Divine Lord, singing hymns in His praise, and the sight of
sinners broiling will make me be sorrowful."

She insisted on telling the German of the different churches she had
visited, and the windows she had seen, and she did not notice that he
was turning over his designs and referring to his note book while she
was talking. Suddenly he said:--

"Excuse me, but I think we have got the greater part of the window you
wish for in stock, and the rest can be easily made up. Now the only
question that remains is the question of the colours you care about."

"I have always thought there's no colour like blue. I'd like the Virgin
to wear a blue cloak."

She did not know why she had chosen that colour, but the agent told her
that she was quite right; blue signified chastity; and when the German
had gone she sat thinking of the Virgin and her cloak. The Minorcas,
and Buff Orpingtons, and Plymouth Rocks came through the door cackling,
and while feeding them she sat, her eyes fixed on the beautiful evening
sky, wondering if the blue in the picture would be as pale, or if it
would be a deeper blue.

She remembered suddenly that she used to wear a blue ribbon when she
went blackberrying among the hills; she found it in an old box and tied
it round her neck. The moment she put it on her memory was as if
lighted up with the memories of the saints and the miracles they had
performed, and she went to Father Maguire to tell him of the miracle.
That the agent should have in stock the very window she had imagined
seemed a miracle, and she was encouraged to think some miraculous thing
had happened when the priest asked her to tell him exactly what her
window was like. She had often told him before but he had never
listened to her. But now he recognised her window as an adaptation of
Fra Angelico's picture, and he told her how the saint had wandered from
monastery to monastery painting pictures on the walls. More he could
not tell her, but he promised to proc