Then taking a seat just opposite, she looked with calm eyes at the lay-sister.
"What means this story ?" said the Prioress.
"Reverend Mother, twenty holy Ladies went----" "I know.

And twenty returned." "Aye," said the old woman more firmly, nettled out of her speechlessness; "twenty returned; and twenty peas I dropped from hand to hand.

Then--when no pea remained--yet another White Lady glided by; and with her went an icy wind, and around her came the blackness of the storm.
"Down the steps I fled, locked the door, and took the key.

How I mounted again, I know not.

As I drew level with the cloisters, I saw that twenty-first White Lady, for whom--Saint Peter knows--I held no pea, passing from the cloisters into the cell passage.