black curtain drawn aside), ask him what good might come of it.... If any one become so mad and unreasonable that he puts forth his hand toward the window-cloth (curtain), shut the window (_i.e._ close the shutter) quickly, and leave him; ... and as soon as any man falls into evil discourse, close the window, and go away with this verse, that he may hear it, 'The wicked have told me foolish tales, but not according to thy law;' and go forth before your altar, and say the 'Miserere.'" Again, "Keep your hands within your windows, for handling or touching between a man and an anchoress is a thing unnatural, shameful, wicked," &c. The bishop adds a characteristic piece of detail to our picture when he speaks of the fair complexions of the recluses because not sunburnt, and their white hands through not working, both set in strong relief by the black colour of the habit and veil. He says, indeed, that "since no man seeth you, nor ye see any man, ye may be content with your clothes white or black." But in practice they seem usually to have worn black habits, unless, when attached to the church of any monastery, they may have worn the habit of the order. They were not to wear rings, brooches, ornamented girdles, or gloves. "An anchoress," he says, "ought to take sparingly (of alms), only that which is necessary (_i.e._ she ought not to take alms to give away again). If she can spare any fragments of her food, let her send them away (to some poor person) privately out of her dwelling. For the devil," he says elsewhere, "tempts anchoresses, through their charity, to collect to give to the poor, then to a friend, then to make a feast." "There are anchoresses," he says, "who make their meals with their friends without; that is too much friendship." The editor thinks this to mean that some anchoresses left their cells, and went to dine at the houses of their friends; but the word is _gistes_ (guests), and, more probably, it only means that the recluse ate her dinner in her cell while a guest ate hers in the guest-room of the reclusorium, with an open window between, so that they could see and converse with one another. For we find in another place that she was to maintain "silence always at meals; ... and if any one hath a guest whom she holds dear, she may cause her maid, as in her stead, to entertain her friend with glad cheer, and she shall have leave to open her window once or twice, and make signs to her of gladness." But "let no _man_ eat in your presence, except he be in great need." The narrative already given at p. 109, of the visit of St. Richard the hermit to Dame Margaret the recluse of Anderby, also shows that in exceptional cases a recluse ate with men. The incident of the head of the recluse, in her convulsive sleep, falling at the window at which the hermit was reclining, and leaning partly upon him,[157] is explained by the theory that they were sitting in separate apartments, each close by this house window, which was open between them.