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Updated: June 29, 2025
She knelt upon the grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat, peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag. Above her on a bough, a robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas. To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have taken leave of her senses.
'A monastery, said she, 'is not so frightful a solitude as you, being a stranger to the manners of this country, have perhaps painted to yourself: I have companions in whom I believe you will find some agreements. She then rung a bell, and ordered an attending nun, or what they call a lay-sister, to call some of the sisterhood, whose names she mentioned; and presently came two nuns, with a third lady in a different habit; the least handsome of these might have passed for a beauty, but she that was the most so I shall call Elgidia; she was sister to the abbess, but wanted a good many of her years, and being intended for a monastic life by their parents, had been sent there as a pensioner, till she should be prevailed upon to take the veil.
She was a woman of about sixty years of age, clad in the habit of a lay-sister of the Benedictine Order, and seated within a curtained recess, and engaged in reading her "office." She was probably doing duty as duenna to the beautiful widow. One sole desire, one passion now remains, To keep life's fever still within his veins, Vengeance!
The old lay-sister, Mary Antony, stepped from the cool shade of the cell passage and, blinking at the sunshine, shuffled slowly to her appointed post at the top of the crypt steps, up which would shortly pass the silent procession of nuns returning from Vespers.
She loved the old lay-sister, knowing the aged body held a faithful and zealous heart, and a mind which, in its quaint simplicity, oft seemed to the Prioress like the mind of a little child and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. "There is no need for patience, dear Antony," said the Prioress. "I can sit in stillness beside thee, until thy tale be fully told. Begin at the beginning."
There was lay-sister Agatha with the high gold crucifix, and the three incense-bearers, and the two-and-twenty garbed in white, who cast flowers upon either side of them and sang sweetly the while.
And even as she realised this, the key grated in the lock below. Taking up her position at the top of the steps, the five-and-twenty peas in her right hand, Mary Antony quickly made up her mind. She could not lift her eyes to the Reverend Mother's face. She would count the passing feet. The young lay-sister who carried the light, stumped up the steps, and set down the lantern with a clatter.
In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low window. The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who had waited on him, and sat down herself. "You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr.
The candle which lighted this dreary place was fixed in a bottle. "What have you decided on doing?" said I. "I have decided on nothing, for an unforeseen incident has confounded us. The lay-sister has been asleep for eighteen hours." "She will die of convulsions or of an apoplectic fit to-night if you do not call a doctor, who may possibly restore her to life with a dose of castor oil."
The day after Shrove Tuesday, going to the casino of Muran, I found there a letter from M M , who gave me two pieces of bad news: that C C had lost her mother, and that the poor girl was in despair; and that the lay-sister, whose rheum was cured, had returned to take her place.
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