So it came to pass that, as he rode up to the door and dismounted, flinging his rein to Brother Philip, the Bishop found himself confronted by the queer little figure of the aged lay-sister, drawn up to its full height and obviously upheld by a sense of importance and dignity.

As the Bishop reached the entrance, she knelt and kissed his ring; then tried to rise quickly, failed, and clutching at his hand, exclaimed:  “Devil take my old knee-joints!”

Never before had the Bishop been received with such a formula!  Never had his ring been kissed by a lay-sister!  But remembering the scene when old Antony rode round the field upon Icon, he understood that she now was playing the part of Prioress.

“Good-day, worthy Mother,” he said, as he raised her.  “The spirit is willing I know, but, in your case, the knee-joints are weak.  But no wonder, for they have done you long service.  Why, I get up slowly from kneeling, yet my knees are thirty years younger than yours. . . .  Nay I will not mount to the Reverend Mother’s chamber until you acquaint her of my arrival.  Take me round to the garden, and there let me wait in the shade, while you seek her.”

Greatly elated at the success of her effort, and emboldened by his charming condescension, Mary Antony led the Bishop through the rose-arch; and, casting a furtive glance at his face from behind the curtain of her veil, ventured to hope there was naught afoot which could bring trouble or care to the Reverend Mother.

Mary Antony was trotting beside the Bishop, down the long walk between the yew hedges, when she gave vent to this anxious question.

At once the Bishop slackened speed.

“Not so fast, Sister Antony,” he said.  “I pray you to remember mine age, and to moderate your pace.  Why should you expect trouble or anxiety for the Reverend Mother?”

“Nay,” said Mary Antony, “I expect naught; I saw naught; I heard naught!  ’Twas all mine own mistake, counting with my peas.  I told the Reverend Mother so, and set her mind at rest by carrying up six peas, saying that I had found six and not five in my wallet.”

“Let us pause,” said the Bishop, “and look at this lily.  How lovely are its petals.  How tall and white it shews against the hedge.  Why did you need to set the Reverend Mother’s mind at rest, Sister Antony, by carrying up six peas?”

“Because,” said the old lay-sister, “when I had counted as they returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another passed making twenty-one.  Upon which I ran and reported to the Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over fifty years numbered with the Dead.  Yet many a time, just before dawn, have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time—­tap! tap! tap!  But what good would there be in opening to a poor lady you helped thrust into her shroud, nigh upon sixty years before?  So ’Tap away!’ says I; ’tap away, Sister Agatha!  Try Saint Peter at the gates of Paradise.  Old Antony knows better than to let you in.’”