there, in the drawing-room, and with him were two sisters of Saint
Clare, robed in the habit of their order.

"These holy sisters would have speech of the Lady," explained Bertram.
"May the same be?"

Certainly it might, so far as Constance was concerned. She was so weary
of her isolation that she would have welcomed even the Duchess Joan.
She bade the immediate admission of the nuns, who were evidently
provided with permission from the authorities. They were both tall
women, but with that item the likeness began and ended. One was a
fair-complexioned woman of forty years,--stern-looking, spare,
haggard-faced,--in whose cold blue eyes there might be intelligence, but
there was no warmth of human kindness. The other was a
comfortable-looking girl of eighteen, rosy-cheeked, with dark eyes and
hair.

"Christ save you, holy sisters!" said Constance as they approached her.
"Ye be of these parts, trow?"

"Nay," answered the younger nun, "we be of the House of Minoresses
beyond Aldgate; and though thine eyes have not told thee so much,
Custance, I am Isabel of Pleshy."

"Lady Isabel of Pleshy! Be right welcome, fair cousin mine!"

Isabel was the youngest daughter of that Duke of Gloucester who had been
for so many years the evil angel of King and realm. Constance had not
seen her since childhood, so that it was no wonder that she failed to
recognise her. Meanwhile Maude had turned courteously to the elder nun.

"Pray you, take the pain to sit in the window."

"I never sit," replied the nun in a harsh, rasping voice.

"Truly, that is more than I could say," observed Maude with a smile.
"Shall it like you to drink a draught of small ale?"

"I never drink ale."

This assertion would not sound strange to us, but it was astounding to
Maude.

"Would you ipocras and spice rather?"

"I never eat spice."

"Will you eat a marchpane?"

"I never eat marchpane."

Maude wondered what this impracticable being did condescend to do.

"Then a shive of bread and tryacle?"

"Bread, an' you will: I am no babe, that I should lack sugar and
tryacle."

Maude procured refreshments, and the elder nun, first making the sign of
the cross over her dry bread, began to eat; while Lady Isabel, who
evidently had not reached an equal height of monastic sanctity, did not
refuse any of the good things offered. But when Maude attempted further
conversation, the ascetic and acetic lady, intimating that it was
prayer-time, and she