"Was your grandmother, the Lady Julian, an admirer of these new doctrines?" said I. "They were scarcely known in her day as they have been since," said Joan; "only the first leaves, so to speak, were above the soil: but so far as I can judge from what I know, I should say, not so. She was a great stickler for old ways and the authority of the Church." "And your mother?" I was coming near delicate ground, I felt, now. "Oh! she, I should say, would have liked our doctrines better. Mother Annora, is there blue enough here, or shall I put on another coat?" Joan looked up at me as she spoke. I said I thought it was deep enough, and she might now begin the shading. Her head went down again to her work. "My mother," said she, "was no bigot, nor did she much love priests; I dare venture to say, had Father Wycliffe written then as he has now, she would somewhat have supported him so far as lay in her power. But my father, I think, would have loved these doctrines best of all. I have heard say he spoke against the ill lives of the clergy, and the idle doings of the Mendicant Friars: and little as I was when he departed to God, I can myself remember that he used to tell me stories of our Lord and the ancient saints and patriarchs, which I know, now that I can read it, to have come out of God's Word. Ay, methinks, had he lived, he would have helped forward this new reformation of doctrine and manners." "Reformation!" cries Mother Ada, entering the chamber. "I would we could have a reformation in this house. What my Lady would be at, passeth me to conceive. She must think I have two pairs of eyes and six pairs of hands, if no more. Do but guess, Sister Annora, what she wants to have done." "Nay, that I cannot," said I. I foresaw some hard work, for my Lady is one who leaves things to go as they list for ever so long, and then, suddenly waking up, would fain turn the house out o' windows ere one can shut one's eyes. "Why, if she did not send for me an hour after we came out, and said the condition of the chapel was shameful; how could we have let it get into such a state? Father Mortimer was completely scandalised at the sight of it. All the holy images were all o'er cobwebs, and all--" "And all of a baker's dozen of blessed times," said Sister Gaillarde, entering behind, "have I been at her for new pails and brushes, never speak of soap. I told her a spider as big as a silver penny had spun a line from Saint Peter's key to Saint Katherine's nose; and as to the dust--why, you could make soup of it. I've dusted Saint Katherine many a time with my hands, for I had them, if I'd nought else: and trust me, the poor Saint looked so forlorn, I fairly wondered she did not speak. Had I been the image of a saint, somebody would have heard of it, I warrant you, when that spider began scuttering up and down my nose."