It seemed as though there was scarcely an hour in the twenty-four in which the clanging of the bell did not arouse the luckless inmates to repair to the chapel for prayers, and woe to any one who were so unfortunate as to break any one of the strict rules of the house, for the slightest punishment of the abbess was a thing to be dreaded. Perhaps it was to lie for hours stretched in the form of a cross on the cold pavement of the cell or chapel; to stand in a painful posture before some shrine, till the offender fainted from weariness; to go day after day with the least possible quantity of the coarsest food that could keep soul and body together; or perhaps, in extreme cases, the holy lady would herself apply the scourge to the naked back of the criminal, accompanying each blow by a pious exhortation, or a passage in the life of a saint, until both voice and hand were too wearied to perform their part any longer. "And now daughter," she would say, as her victim was led away, "go in peace; may this slight correction save thee from the pains of hell! Go in peace, and forget not in thy prayers to thank Our Lady and the saints that thou hast been placed here, where thy soul is so well cared for!" It was quite doubtful whether the offender ever experienced the gratitude which was expected of her for the benefits received at the reverend Lady’s hand, but it was thought that Mother Beatrice quite enjoyed these little opportunities for doing good, and either found, or made them, as often as possible. It was after one of these occasions, when she was resting from the benevolent fatigue she had just undergone, that the porteress came bustling in, with an unusual air of excitement, to inform her of the arrival of the captain and his men. The abbess received the soldier with the cold dignity befitting her situation; but as soon as she had heard the story, her heart palpitated with joy and triumph, in a manner quite unusual to one covered with the serge robe of her order. Her ruling passion was for governing, and forcing those around her to an absolute subjection to her will; and she had lately begun to weary of the contracted scope given to her powers in this quiet convent. The sins which she was called upon to punish were, after all, mere peccadilloes, and her subjects were so subdued by severity that there was no hope of a serious enough rebellion among them to excite her faculties in putting it down; but here were intrusted to her two heretics, made all the more interesting by being of the opposite sex, and yet not old enough to bring a scandal upon the convent if it received them within its walls. She promised the captain to do all she could to draw from them the secret of their father’s hiding-place and that of Lord Cobham, and to keep them safely till the archbishop, who was then in London, should return, and decide what was to be done with them.