He did not like to impugn a popular belief, but he
felt obliged to exercise clerical control.
"Now, Biddy, I know you are a very pious woman, but I cannot allow
you to interrupt the Mass."
"If the Lord comes to me am I not to receive Him, your reverence?"
"In the first place I object to your dress; you are not properly
dressed."
She wore a bright blue cloak, she seemed to wear hardly anything
else, and tresses of dirty hair hung over her shoulders.
"The Lord has not said anything to me about my dress, your
reverence, and He put His gold crown on my head to-day."
"Biddy, is all this true?"
"As true as you're standing there."
"I am not asking you if your visions are true. I have my opinion
about that. I am asking if they are true to you."
"True to me, your reverence? I don't rightly understand."
"I want to know if you think Our Lord put a gold crown on your
head to-day."
"To be sure He did, your reverence."
"If He did, where is it?"
"Where is it, your reverence? It is with Him, to be sure. He
wouldn't be leaving it on my head and me walking about the parish--
that would not be reasonable at all, I am thinking. He doesn't
want me to be robbed."
"There is no one in the parish who would rob you."
"Maybe some one would come out of another parish, if I was walking
about with a gold crown on my head. And such a crown as He put
upon it!--I am sorry you did not see it, but your reverence was
saying the holy Mass at the time."
And she fell on her knees and clung to his cassock.
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