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Behind them, Mother Sub-Prioress, holding something beneath her scapulary which gave to her more of a presence than she usually possessed. Solemn and official, nay, almost sacrificial was their measured shuffle, as they moved along the passage, and entered the cell of Mary Seraphine.
The bag, about six inches square, tightly sewed on all four of its sides, was made of snake-skin, and was provided with a loop of snake-skin so that it might be hung from the neck upon the breast like a scapulary.
A Roman Catholic servant woman, who had concealed some of her sins at confession, acted so hypocritical a part as to make her mistress believe her a decote, or a strict observer of her duty. She even imposed upon her confessor, to such a degree, that he gave her a scapulary.
She stood there, animated, handsome, filled with a hurtful consciousness in her new charms, her fresh finery, and the pitiable trinkets that had supplanted her scapulary, and which played under her foolish fingers. The past had no place in her preoccupied mind; her bright eyes were full of eager anticipation of a substantial future.
The old lay-sister seized her wallet and pulled out the bag of peas. Below, the heavy door swung back upon its hinges. Mary Antony dropped upon her knees to the right of the steps, her hands hidden beneath her scapulary, her eyes bent in lowly reverence upon the sunlit flagstones, her lips mumbling chance sentences from the Psalter.
This was the fair votaress, Isole de Heton, who brought such scandal on the Abbey in the reign of Henry VI. The other portrait was that of an abbot, in the white gown and scapulary of the Cistertian order. The countenance was proud and stern, but tinctured with melancholy.
Her voice, so sweet and tender, yet so hopeless in the unquestioning finality of its regret, struck cold upon the heart of the Knight. "But, my belovèd, I have found thee," he said, and dropping upon one knee at her feet, he put out his hands to cover both hers. But the Prioress was too quick for him. She hid her hands beneath her scapulary. The Knight's brown fingers closed on the lions' heads.
Moving along the cloister, she seated herself upon the stone slab in the archway overlooking the lawn and the pieman's tree; then drew forth from beneath her scapulary, the worn leathern wallet which had belonged to the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.
"My beloved," he began, "there are some who think too little of the scapulary, and there are others who lay too great a stress on this aid to faith. Let us meditate on both these conditions. But first, how must we ourselves regard the scapulary? Now, we are told not to love the world nor the things of the world.
There are as many as five hundred of them who have taken the scapulary of the Holy Virgin, and many others who recite the chaplet of the Holy Family every day." Talon met with a rather strong opposition to his immigration plans in the person of the great Colbert, who was afraid of seeing the Mother Country depopulated in favour of her new daughter Canada.
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