bindeth these fetters upon
her, that bars these gates against her going forth, that hath quenched
all the sunlight of her life, and hushed all the music out of it--this
enemy is her own son, that she nursed at her bosom--the boy for whose
life she risked hers an hundred times, whose patrimony she only saved to
him, whose welfare through thirty years hath been dearer to her than her
own. Dost thou marvel if her words be bitter, and if her eyes be
sorrowful? Could they be aught else?"

Amphillis looked as horrified as she felt.

"Mistress Perrote, it is dreadful! Can my said Lord Duke be Christian
man?"

"Christian!" echoed Perrote, bitterly. "Dear heart, ay! one of the best
Catholics alive! Hath he not built churches with the moneys of his
mother's dower, and endowed convents with the wealth whereof he
defrauded her? What could man do better? A church is a great matter,
and a mother a full little one. Mothers die, but churches and convents
endure. Ah, when such mothers die and go to God, be there no words writ
on the account their sons shall thereafter render? Is He all silent
that denounced the Jewish priests for their Corban, by reason they
allowed man to deny to his father and mother that which he had devote to
God's temple? Is His temple built well of broken hearts, and His altar
meetly covered with the rich tracery of women's tears? `The hope of the
hypocrite shall perish, when God taketh away his soul.'"

Never before had Amphillis seen any one change as Perrote had changed
now. The quiet, stolid-looking woman had become an inspired prophetess.
It was manifest that she dearly loved her mistress, and was
proportionately indignant with the son who treated her so cruelly.

"Child," she said to Amphillis, "she lived for nought save that boy!
Her daughter was scarce anything to her; it was alway the lad, the lad!
And thus the lad a-payeth her for all her love and sacrifice--for the
heart that stood betwixt him and evil, for the gold and jewels that she
thought too mean to be set in comparison with him, for the weary arms
that bare him, and the tired feet that carried him about, a little
wailing babe--for the toil and the labour, the hope and the fear, the
waiting and the sorrow! Ay, but I marvel in what manner of coin God our
Father shall pay him!"

"But wherefore doth he so?" cried Amphillis.

"She was in his way," replied Perrote, in a tone of constrained
bitterness. "He could not have all his