.

Even now the great doors were rolling back.
Mary Antony mounted the six steps; then turned in the doorway.
The Lord Bishop must be received.

There was nobody else to do it.

She would receive the Lord Bishop! As she saw him riding in upon Icon, blessing the porteress as he passed, she remembered how she had ridden round the river meadow as the Bishop.

Now she must play her part as the Prioress.
So it came to pass that, as he rode up to the door and dismounted, flinging his rein to Brother Philip, the Bishop found himself confronted by the queer little figure of the aged lay-sister, drawn up to its full height and obviously upheld by a sense of importance and dignity.
As the Bishop reached the entrance, she knelt and kissed his ring; then tried to rise quickly, failed, and clutching at his hand, exclaimed: "Devil take my old knee-joints!" Never before had the Bishop been received with such a formula! Never had his ring been kissed by a lay-sister! But remembering the scene when old Antony rode round the field upon Icon, he understood that she now was playing the part of Prioress.
"Good-day, worthy Mother," he said, as he raised her.