with her? How hath she filled her days since I did leave her? She is so young—”
“Aye!” said the abbess, a tinge of rebuke in her voice, “too young and too fair to have been left unguarded in this rough land. But God is good and hath shown her a shelter. Thou dost ask me how she hath filled her days? She hath taught the children; she hath comforted the sorrowful; and she hath cared for the sick and the dying. She hath relieved the poor in their misery.”
The pilgrim looked beseechingly at the abbess. She laughed softly. “Thou dost wish to see her? It is that doth stay on thy lips to ask? Then shall I bid her come to thee.”
Aastrid rose and opened the door at the end of the room. The pilgrim turned towards the adjoining room, and this was the picture that the open door revealed.
In the centre of a large apartment sat Maidoch, weaving. Around her were rows of little flaxen-haired children, and young maidens. Some were weaving, some spinning, some writing slowly upon parchment tablets.
According to the convent rule that nothing should interrupt the work in progress, Maidoch kept on at her weaving, without lifting her eyes to the door. The pilgrim drew his breath sharply. Could that noble lady, so composed, so queenly in her womanly beauty, be the little maid, the child almost, of two years ago?
