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Upon ringing the bell, Cuthbert told the porteress, as had been arranged, that he had called on a message from Dame Editha, and he was immediately ushered into the parlour of the convent, where, a minute or two later, he was joined by the lady abbess. He had when young been frequently to the convent, and had always been kindly received.
I don't know whether there was any foundation for this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, and the gate opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress! says I, inwardly. 'You little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you let in! The gates were passed.
"The old creature," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, eyeing the Bishop's meditative hand suspiciously, "then betook herself to the outer gates, told the porteress that she had your orders, Reverend Father, to report to you if the Reverend Mother again elected to pass a night in vigil and in fasting, because you and she you and she forsooth! were made anxious by the too constant fasting and the too prolonged vigils of the Reverend Mother.
Therefore the Worthy Mother I, myself must start at once to fetch the great Lord Bishop; and you, Sister Mary Mark, must open the gate and let me be gone." The porteress gazed, round-eyed and amazed. "Nay, Sister Mary Antony, that can I not, without an order from the Reverend Mother herself. And even then, you could not walk so far as to the Lord Bishop's Palace.
Both of these were in the letter which brought the news that his father was dead, and that his mother was alone now. She wrote that Emily had come down to see her, and had been to her like an angel of comfort; and concerning herself, she added that she had been allowed to keep her situation as porteress.
"Benedicite," said the Bishop, with uplifted fingers, but with eyes averted; and passed out. Old Mary Antony was at the gate, when the Bishop rode out from the courtyard. Thrusting the porteress aside, she pressed forward, standing with anxious face uplifted, as the Bishop approached. He reined in Icon, and, bending from the saddle, murmured: "Take care of her, Sister Antony.
On a third melancholy occasion he wrote that he was attacked by illness, and wanted money to pay the physician whom he was compelled to call in; and this time Lady Mirabel, alarmed about her father's safety, and perhaps reproaching herself that she had of late lost sight of her father, called for her carriage and drove to Shepherd's Inn, at the gate of which she alighted, whence she found the way to her father's chambers, "No. 4, third floor, name of Podmore over the door," the porteress said, with many courtesies, pointing toward the door of the house into which the affectionate daughter entered, and mounted the dingy stair.
"Nay, my lord, none; save that the Prioress is distraught with anxiety concerning the aged nun, and has commanded that the underground way to the Cathedral crypt be searched; though, indeed, the porteress confesses to having let Sister Mary Antony out at the gate." "Rumour again," said the Bishop, "and not a word of truth in it, I warrant.
I arrived at Thornton's chambers in the Rue St. Dominique. "Monsieur, est-il chez lui?" said I to the ancient porteress, who was reading one of Crebillon's novels. "Oui, Monsieur, au quatrieme," was the answer. I turned to the dark and unclean staircase, and, after incredible exertion and fatigue, arrived, at last, at the elevated abode of Mr. Thornton.
Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed like going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far away; it was a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young soul, pure and white, had floated, without rapture, but without any great grief or pain. The porteress showed them into the parlor.
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