In full splendour he came, with a train of chaplains and cross-
bearers, and the clergy of Salisbury sent a deputation to meet him,
and to arrange with him for his reception and installation. It was
then that the Countess heard that there was a nun at Wilton Abbey so
skilled in the treatment of wounds and sores that she was thought to
work miracles, being likewise a very holy woman.
The Earl and Countess would accompany the new bishop to be present at
his enthronement and the ensuing banquet, and the lady made this an
opportunity of riding to the convent on her way back, consulting the
Abbess, whom she had long known, and likewise seeing Sister Avice,
and requesting that her poor little guest might be received and
treated there.
There was no chance of a refusal, for the great nobles were
sovereigns in their own domains; the Countess owned half Wiltshire,
and was much loved and honoured in all the religious houses for her
devotion and beneficence.
The nuns were only too happy to undertake to receive the demoiselle
Grisell Dacre of Whitburn, or any other whom my Lady Countess would
entrust to them, and the Abbess had no doubt that Sister Avice could
effect a cure.
Lady Salisbury dreaded that Grisell should lie awake all night
crying, so she said nothing till her whirlicote, as the carriage of
those days was called, was actually being prepared, and then she went
to the chamber where the poor child had spent five months, and where
she was now sitting dressed, but propped up on a sort of settle, and
with half her face still bandaged.
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