"Contrariwise, _blessing_." According to that, she must seek out some way of helping or pleasing her aunt, as a return for her behaviour about the stockings. And strangely enough, there began to come into her heart, for the first time, a feeling of pity for Mrs. Busby. Rotha did not believe she was near as happy, with all her money, as her little penniless self with her Bible. No, nor half as rich. What could she do, to shew good will towards her? There was nobody at the dinner table that evening, who looked happier than Rotha; there was nobody who enjoyed everything so well. For I am the servant of Christ she said to herself. A little while later, in the library, whither they all repaired, she was again lost in the architecture of the 13th and 14th centuries, and in studying Fergusson. She started when Mrs. Mowbray spoke to her. "How did you determine your question, my dear?" Rotha lifted her head, threw back the dark masses of her hair, and cleared the arches of Rivaulx out of her eyes. "O,--I am going to let her have them," she said. "What she demanded?" "Yes, ma'am." "How did you come to that conclusion?" "The words seemed plain, madame, when I came to look at them. That about letting the cloak go, you know; and, 'If it be possible, . . . live peaceably with all men.' If I was going to live peaceably, I knew I must." "And you are inclined now to live peaceably with the person in question?" "O yes, ma'am," said Rotha. She smiled frankly in Mrs. Mowbray's face as she said it; and she was puzzled to know what made that lady's eyes swiftly fill with tears. They filled full. Rotha went back to her stereoscope. "What have you there, my dear?" "O this old abbey, Mrs. Mowbray; it is just a ruin, but it is so beautiful! Will you look?" Mrs. Mowbray put the glass to her eye. "It is a severe style--" she remarked. "Is it?" "And it was built at a severe time of religious strictness in the order to which it belonged. They were a colony from Clairvaux; and the prior of Clairvaux, Bernard, was the most remarkable man of his time; remarkable through his goodness. In all Europe there was not another man, crowned or uncrowned, who had the social and political power of that man. Yet he was a simple monk, and devoted to God's service." "I do not know much about monks," Rotha remarked. "You can know a good deal about them, if you will read that work of Montalembert on the monks of the Middle Ages. Make haste and learn to read French. You must know that first." "Is it in French?" "Yes." Rotha thought as she laid down Rivaulx and took up Tintern abbey, that there was a good deal to learn. Pier next word was an exclamation. "O how beautiful, how beautiful! It is just a door, Mrs. Mowbray, belonging to Tintern abbey, a door and some ivy; but it is so pretty! How came so many of these beautiful abbeys and things to be in ruins?"