babe?--Poor heart!"

Maude was silent.

"Verily, had I wist the pain it should take us to come hither," pursued
Isabel, apparently quite careless about interrupting the spiritual
labours of her sister nun, "methinks I had prayed my Lord the King to
choose another messenger. By the rainfall of late, divers streams have
so bisched [overflowed] their banks, that me verily counted my mule had
been swept away, not once ne twice. It waked my laughter to see how our
steward, that rade with us, strave and struggled with his beast."

Maude's heart was too heavy to answer; but Isabel went on chattering
lightly, to a murmured under-current of "_Ora pro nobis_" as bead after
bead, in the hands of the kneeling nun, pursued its fellow down the
string of the rosary. Maude sat on the settle, with the sleeping child
in her arms, listening as if she heard not, and feeling as though she
had lost all power of reply. At last the rosary came to its final bead,
and, crossing herself, the elder nun arose.

"Sister, I pray you of your Paternoster, sith you be terminate," said
Isabel, holding out her hand. "Mine brake, fording the river astont
[near], and half the beads were gone ere I could gather the same. 'Tis
pity, for they were good cornelian."

The rosary changed hands, and Isabel began to say her prayers, neither
leaving her chair nor stopping her conversation.

"'Twas when we reached the diversory [inn] last afore Stafford, Dame
Lyngern--_Janua Coeli, ora pro nobis_!--we were aware of a jolly
debonere pardoner [Note 1],--_Stella Matutina, ora pro nobis_!--that
rade afore, on a fat mule, as well-liking as he--_Refugium Peccatorum,
ora pro nobis_!--and coming anigh us, quoth he to me, that first
rade--_Regina Angelorum, ora pro nobis_!--`Sister,' quoth my master the
pardoner--."

"Sister Isabel, you have dropped a bead!" snapped the elder nun.

"Thanks, Sister Avice.--By my Lady Saint Mary! where was I? Oh
ay!--_Regina Patriarcharum, ora pro nobis_!--Well, Dame Lyngern, I will
do you to wit what befell."

But Maude's eyes and attention were riveted.

"Be there two Avices in the Priory at Aldgate?--crying your Ladyship
mercy."

"Nay,--but one," said Isabel. "Wherefore, Dame?"

"But--this is not my Avice!" faltered Maude.

"I am Saint Clare's Avice, and none other," said the nun stonily.

"But--Avice de Narbonne?"

"Avice de Narbonne I was; and thou wert Maude Gerard."

"Christ's mercy on thee!"

"What signifies