"For love of me." When at length he chirped and flew, she still sat motionless, listening as he sang his evening song high up in the pieman's tree.
Then she rose and swept the untouched fragments back into the wallet.
There was triumph in the action.
"For love!" she said.

"Not of that which I brought and gave, but of that which he thought me to be." Slowly she left the cloister, moving, with bent head, until she reached the open door of the empty chamber which had been the Reverend Mother's.
Before long this chamber would be hers.

At noon she had received word from the Bishop that it was his intention to appoint her to be Prioress, for the years which yet remained of the Reverend Mother's term of office.
She had experienced a sinister pleasure in being thus promoted to this high office by the Bishop, owing to the certainty that had the usual election by ballot taken place, her name would not have been inscribed by a single member of the Community.
Yet now, in this strangely softened mood, she began wistfully to desire that there might be looks of pleasure and satisfaction on at least a few faces, when the announcement should be made on the morrow.
Mother Sub-Prioress passed into the cell, and closed the door.
She was drawn, by the glow of the sunset, to the oriel window.

But on her way thither she found herself unexpectedly arrested before the marble group of the Virgin and Child.
Mother Sub-Prioress never could see a naked babe without experiencing a feeling of irritation against those who had failed to provide it with suitable clothing.

Possibly this was why she had hurriedly looked the other way if her eye chanced to fall upon the beautiful sculpture in the Prioress's cell.
Now, for the first time, she really saw it.
She stood and gazed; then knelt, and tried to understand.
The tenderness reached her heart and shook it.