"Sister Mary Antony hath not been seen at the Palace." "Alack-a-day!" exclaimed Sister Abigail; "she will have fallen by the way, and perished! She was too old to face the world or attempt to reach the city." "Peace, girl!" commanded the Sub-Prioress.

"Thy comments and thy wailings mend not the matter, and do but incense the Lord Bishop." Nothing could have appeared less incensed than the Bishop's benign countenance.

But he had spoken sternly to Mother Sub-Prioress, therefore she endeavoured to put herself in the right by charging him, at the first opportunity, with unreasonable irritation.
The Bishop reassured Sister Abigail, with a smile; then, pointing toward the closed door: "Proceed with your recital, Mother Sub-Prioress," he said.

"You have as yet given me no proof confirming your belief that the Prioress is within the cell." "When the absence of Mary Antony became known, my lord," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, "we felt it right to acquaint the Reverend Mother with the old lay-sister's flight.

I, myself, knocked upon this door; but the only reply I received was the continuous low chanting of prayers, from within; not so much a clear chanting, as a murmur; and whenever, during the night, nuns listened at the door, or ventured again to tap, the sound of the Reverend Mother's voice, reciting psalms or prayers, reached them.