"I wonder whether St. Dominic ever read that verse in the Psalter, about the sparrow finding a nest wherein to lay her young?" remarked Amice.
"Eh, dear, I don't know—I suppose so. He was a stern man, was St. Dominic."
"Mother," said Amice, after a little silence, "did you know the lady who used to live in the Queen's apartment?"
"Did I know her? Aye, indeed, child! Did I not have the principal care of her, under the Mother Superior that was then? But that was long ago. Mother Gertrude was a young woman then, and Mother Superior that now is, was just professed. It was in the weary times of the civil wars, in Henry Sixth's day, that the poor lady came here, and she lived in those rooms twenty years—twenty years, children—and never saw a face save Mother Superior's and mine, and latterly Mother Gertrude's, when she began to divide the charge with me."
"What, not at church?" said I.
"She never went into the church," answered Mother Mary Monica. "There is a sliding panel in the oratory—I know not whether you found it—behind which is a very close grating, too close to be seen through, looking upon the altar. Here she might hear mass, if she would, but she never went into the church."
"But surely she might have looked into the garden, and seen the Sisters at their recreation."
"No, child. The windows, you may have observed, are very tall, and the lower parts were boarded up higher than she could reach. When she was at last laid on her dying bed, the boards were taken down, at her most earnest prayer, that she might once more behold the green trees. Ah, well do I remember, children," said the old Mother, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I was alone with her after that, and she said to me, clasping her hands—oh such thin hands! You could see the light through the very palms of them, and she had wound her finger with threads that she might not lose her wedding-ring."
"And she said—" repeated Amice.
"And she said, clasping her poor hands, 'Oh dear sister, for our dear Lord's sake, put me in my chair by the window, and let me look on the face of the fair world once more.' Well I knew she could not live long, at the best, so I even humored her, and lifted her to the great chair by the window."