Tears filled the eyes of the Prioress; at first she could not trust her voice to make reply.

Then, stooping she picked up the nosegay.

“Our Lady shall have it,” she said.  “I will place it before her shrine, in mine own cell.  She will understand—­knowing how often, though the hands perforce do weeding, yet, all the time, the heart is gathering choicest flowers.

“Aye, and sometimes when we bring to God offerings of fairest flowers, He sees but worthless weeds.  And, when we mourn, because we have but weeds to offer, He sees them fragrant blossoms.  Whatever, to the eye of man, the hand may hold, God sees therein the bouquet of the heart’s intention.”

The Prioress paused, a look of great gladness on her face; then, as she saw the old lay-sister still eyeing her posy with dissatisfaction:  “And, after all, dear Antony,” she said, “who shall decide which flowers shall be dubbed ‘weeds’?  No plant of His creation, however humble, was called a ‘weed’ by the Creator.  When, for man’s sin, He cursed the ground, He said:  ’Thorns also and thistles shall it cause to bud.’  Well?  Sharpest thorns are found around the rose; the thistle is the royal bloom of Scotland; and, if our old white ass could speak her mind, doubtless she would call it King of Flowers.

“Nowhere in Holy Books, is any plant named a ‘weed.’  It is left to man to proclaim that the flowers he wants not, are weeds.

“Look at each one of these.  Could you or I, labouring for years, with all our skill, make anything so perfect as the meanest of these weeds?

“Nay; they are weeds, because they grow, there where they should not be.  The gorgeous scarlet poppy is a weed amid the corn.  If roses overgrew the wheat, we should dub them weeds, and root them out.

“And some of us have had, perforce, so to deal with the roses in our lives; those sweet and fragrant things which overgrew our offering of the wheat of service, our sacrifice of praise and prayer.

“Perhaps, when our weeds are all torn out, and cast in a tangled heap before His Feet, our Lord beholds in them a garland of choice blossoms.  The crown of thorns on earth, may prove, in Paradise, a diadem of flowers.”

The Prioress laid the posy on the seat beside her.

“Now, Antony, about thy games with peas.  There is no wrong in keeping count with peas of those who daily walk to and from Vespers; though, I admit, it seems to me, it were easier to count one, two, three, with folded hands, than to let fall the peas from one hand to the other, beneath thy scapulary.  Howbeit, a method which would be but a pitfall to one, may prove a prop to another.  So I give thee leave to continue to count with thy peas.  Also the games in thy cell are harmless, and lead me to think, as already I have sometimes thought, that games with balls or rings, something in which eye guides the hand, and mind the eye, might be helpful for all, on summer evenings.