Thus Grisell learnt as
an apt scholar these arts, and took especial delight in helping
Sister Avice to compound her simples, and acquired a tender hand with
which to apply them.
Moreover, she learnt not only to say and sing her Breviary, but to
know the signification in English. There were translations of the
Lord's Prayer and Creed in the hands of all careful and thoughtful
people, even among the poor, if they had a good parish priest, or had
come under the influence of the better sort of friars. In convents
where discipline was kept up the meaning was carefully taught, and
there were English primers in the hands of all the devout, so that
the services could be intelligently followed even by those who did
not learn Latin, as did Grisell. Selections from Scripture history,
generally clothed in rhyme, and versified lives of the Saints, were
read aloud at meal-times in the refectory, and Grisell became so good
a reader that she was often chosen to chant out the sacred story, and
her sweet northern voice was much valued in the singing in the
church. She was quite at home there, and though too young to be
admitted as a novice, she wore a black dress and white hood like
theirs, and the annual gifts to the nunnery from the Countess of
Salisbury were held to entitle her to the residence there as a
pensioner. She had fully accepted the idea of spending her life
there, sheltered from the world, among the kind women whom she loved,
and who had learnt to love her, and in devotion to God, and works of
mercy to the sick.
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