Then
the old faces one by one passed before her; old Dame Agnes with her
mumbling lips and her rosy cheeks like wrinkled apples, looking so fresh
and wholesome in the white linen about her face; and then the others one
by one--that white-faced, large-eyed sister who had shown such passionate
devotion at first that they all thought that God was going to raise up a
saint amongst them--ah! God help her--she had sunk back at the
dissolution, from those heights of sanctity towards whose summits she had
set her face, down into the muddy torrent of the world that went roaring
down to the abyss--and who was responsible? There was Dame Avice, the
Sacristan, with her businesslike movements going about the garden,
gathering flowers for the altar, with her queer pursed lips as she
arranged them in her hands with her head a little on one side; how
annoying she used to be sometimes; but how good and tender at heart--God
rest her soul! And there was Mr. Wickham, the old priest who had been
their chaplain for so many years, and who lived in the village parsonage,
waited upon by Tom Downe, that served at the altar too--he who had got
the horses ready when the nuns had to go at last on that far-off May
morning, and had stood there, holding the bridles and trying to hide his
wet face behind the horses; where was Tom now? And Mr. Wickham too--he
had gone to France with some of the nuns; but he had never settled down
there--he couldn't bear the French ways--and besides he had left his
heart behind him buried in the little Sussex priory among the meadows.
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