“My daughters,” said the prior, on the eve of his departure, “duty calls me away to my own flock. The bridge I built over the Dove three years agone, after the great hurricane, has, Friar Paul brings word, been shaken sorely. I must needs see to its repair. The safety of many lives depends on its stability. Yet I would fain see you more submissive to the divine will ere I depart. Think how many sufferers there have been by the same calamity—how many a hearth has been laid bare, how many cry aloud for sustenance the flood has swept away. Abandon not your hours to selfish lamentations, but go abroad, see how the poor hinds bear their sorrows, and endeavour, by good and charitable deeds, to win the favour of your offended Lord. Look on the crosses that ye wear, and think of His wounds and His tears, and remember that His blood and His tears were shed for others, not for self.” Idonea’s eyes were fixed on him when he began; they drooped as low as those of Avice ere he ended. “Father,” said she, “your rebuke is just. We have thought the world was our own—in joy and in sorrow. It shall not be so henceforth. We ask your blessing ere you go.” The benediction was spoken, and on the morrow he was gone. They, too, went forth in their mourning-weeds, and saw what sorrow meant for the very poor and for the class above them. Tottering huts, bare fields, where the only crop was dull red mud; mothers in rags weeping over naked and famishing babes; churls looking hopeless on desolation, or seeking wearily to repair a fence or clear a garden. And wherever they went they left hope behind, as well as coin, or food, or raiment from the hall. But some took their gifts and sympathy with sullen thanklessness. They were little better than serfs, and were more inclined to resent the ability to bestow than feel grateful to the willing bestowers. Seneschal and reeve said they would spoil the peasantry with their frequent alms; and even the prior when he came suggested moderation in doles, which destroyed honest independence and fostered beggary. But the sisters had found ease in helping others, and ere long sought the prior’s advice over a project to serve the people for generations yet unborn. They had discovered that sorrow and calamity come to the poor as to the rich, and they proposed to preserve others from losses and heartaches such as theirs. There was a general lamentation that Swark’s Stone was gone and the ford less readily found. “Sister,” said Idonea, “had there been a bridge over the Trent like the Monks’ Bridge over the Dove, we had been happy wives, not mourning maidens. Let us up and build one. If we cannot restore our dead, we may preserve life for the living.” “Right gladly,” assented Avice. “We may so make our sorrow a joy to thousands.” The prior hailed their project as a divine inspiration, hardly conscious he had struck the keynote. They were rich. They would hear nought of suitors. What better could they do with their wealth?