“So is it with the slanderous thoughts of evil minds.  They stir up their own murkiness; but they fail to dim the stars.

“We must bear with Sister Mary Rebecca.”

“Go not nigh them, Reverend Mother,” begged old Antony.  “I will tend them with due care and patience.  These pains in bones, and general shiverings, are given quickly from one to another.  I pray you, go not near.  Remember—­you were taken—­alas! alas!—­and they were left!”

At this the Prioress laughed, gaily.

“But I was not taken decently, with pains in my bones and a-bed, dear Antony.  I was carried off by a bold, bad man—­thy Knight of the Bloody Vest.”

“Oh, pray!” cried the old lay-sister.  “I fear me it is an omen.  The angel Gabriel, Reverend Mother, sent to bear you from earth to heaven.  ‘The one shall be taken, and the other left.’  Ah, if he had but flown off with Mother Sub-Prioress!”

The Prioress laughed again.  “Dear Antony, thy little bird took the first pea he saw.  Had there but been a crumb, or a morsel of cheese, he would have left thee thy white pea. . .  Hark how he sings his little song of praise! . . .  Is it not wonderful to call to mind how, centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks, the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes sang, ‘Do it now—­Do it now,’ as they sought food for their young, the blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing.  Aye, and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily plumaged birds, here—­in these Isles—­the robin redbreast sang, and all our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young; living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how to do.

“And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in this very garden—­if it be a garden still—­the robin will build his nest, and carol his happy song.

“Mark you this, dear Mary Antony:  all things made by man hold within them the elements of change and of decay.  But nature is at one with God, and therefore immutable.  Earthly kingdoms may rise and wane; mighty cities may spring up, then fall into ruin.  Nations may conquer and, in their turn, be conquered.  Man may slay man and, in his turn, be slain.  But, through it all, the mountains stand, the rivers flow, the forests wave, and the redbreast builds his nest in the hawthorn, and warbles a love-song to his mate.”

The Prioress rose and stretched wide her arms to the sunlit garden, to the bough where the robin sang.