Let me see again, sister! Where's a
mirror?"
"Ah! my child, we nuns are not allowed the use of worldly things like
mirrors; I never saw one in my life."
"But oh, for pity's sake, tell me what like am I. Am I so loathly?"
"Nay, my dear maid, I love thee too well to think of aught save that
thou art mine own little one, given back to us by the will of Heaven.
Aye, and so will others think of thee, if thou art good and loving to
them."
"Nay, nay, none will ever love me! All will hate and flee from me,
as from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm of
Spindlesheugh," sobbed Grisell.
"Then, my maid, thou must win them back by thy sweet words and kind
deeds. They are better than looks. And here too they shall soon
think only of what thou art, not of what thou look'st."
"But know you, sister, how--how I should have been married to Leonard
Copeland, the very youth that did me this despite, and he is fair and
beauteous as a very angel, and I did love him so, and now he and his
father rid away from Amesbury, and left me because I am so foul to
see," cried Grisell, between her sobs.
"If they could treat thee thus despiteously, he would surely not have
made thee a good husband," reasoned the sister.
"But I shall never have a husband now," wailed Grisell.
"Belike not," said Sister Avice; "but, my sweetheart, there is better
peace and rest and cheer in such a home as this holy house, than in
the toils and labours of the world.
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