“Aye, Brother, they are coming like white butterflies.”
He looked more fully upon her, “Push back your hood, woman!”
She knew him. “Ah! Middle Forest!” Her heart stood still, then she changed as she could expression of her face, roughened her voice. “Whiter than last Christmas, Brother! That was a brown one here in London.”
“It was white in Middle Forest!” He stared in doubt. “What is your name?”
“Alice Dawn, Brother.”
Still he stared, but she saw his uncertainty increase.
“Did ever you have a sister who called herself Morgen Fay?”
She shook her head. “I had one named Mercy.”
“By Saint Thomas, likenesses are strange things!” said Friar Martin. “There’s something that binds them together, if we could but get it clear!” He looked up at the smith’s sign. “‘Diccon Dawn. Silver and Gold.’ Alice Dawn! Well, you are like, all the same, so you had better say your beads, my daughter, and keep from ill ways! Benedicite!”
He went on through the snowy street.