Next morning, when she had delivered Mary's letter to Dame Joanna, her
love and endurance were put to still severer proof; indeed, the meek-
tempered widow allowed herself to be carried away to such an outbreak
as hitherto would undoubtedly have led Eudoxia to request her dismissal,
with sharp recrimination; but she took it all calmly.

It was not till noon-day--when the bishop made his appearance to
carry the child off to the convent, and was highly wrathful at Mary's
disappearance, threatening the widow, and declaring that he would search
the whole country through for the little girl and find her at last, that
Eudoxia felt that the moment of her triumph had come. She quietly
allowed the bishop to depart, and then only did she send her last and
best shaft at Joanna by informing her that she had in fact encouraged
the child in her exploit on purpose to save her from the cloister. Her
newly-found motherly feeling made her eloquent, and with a result that
she had almost ceased to hope for: the warm-hearted little woman, who
had hurt her with such cruel words, threw her arms round Eudoxia's tall,
meagre figure, put up her face to kiss her, called her a brave, clever
girl, and begged her forgiveness for all she had said and done the day
before.

So, when the Greek went to bed, she felt as if her life had turned
backwards and she had grown more like the happy young creature she had
once been with her sisters in her parents' house.




CHAPTER XXIII.