The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century by Florence L. (Florence Louisa) Barclay
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page 12 of 517 (02%)
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in the case of so weighty a fact, the responsibility rests not upon the
beholder." Mary Antony leaned over the parapet, looking upward. The afternoon sunlight fell full upon the russet parchment of her kind old face, shewing the web of wrinkles spun by ninety years of the gently turning wheel of time. But the robin, perched upon the bough, trilled and sang, unmoved. He was weary of tales of bakers and piemen. He was not at all curious as to what had been beneath the French Cardinal's crimson sash. He wanted the tasty morsels which he knew lay concealed in Sister Mary Antony's leathern wallet. So he stayed on the bough and sang. The old face, peering up from between the pillars, softened into tenderness at the robin's song. "I cannot let thy little grace return unto thee void," she said, and fumbled at the fastenings of her wallet. A flick of wings, a flash of red. The robin had dropped from the bough, and perched beside her. She doled out crumbs, and fragments of cheese, pushing them toward him along the parapet; leaving her fingers near, to see how close he would adventure to her hand. She watched him peck a morsel of cheese into five tiny pieces, then fly, with full beak, on eager wing, to the hidden nest, from which five gaping mouths shrieked a shrill and hungry welcome. Then, back |
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