oning, much less fighting, for the right to do
his duty? And yet is not that, really and verily, the only right a man
has?

It was a gala day for us when our mother returned home, and our brothers
and sisters were gathered and sent back to us. Nym (always a little
given to romance) drew heart-rending pictures of his utter misery, while
in ward; but Roger said it was not so bad, setting aside that it was
prison, and we were parted from one another. And Geoffrey, the sensible
boy of the family, said that while he would not like a monk's life on
the whole, being idle and useless, yet he did like the quiet and
peacefulness of it.

"But I am not secure," said our mother, "that such quiet is what God
would for us, saving some few. Soldiers be not bred by lying of a bed
of rose-leaves beside scented waters. And I think the soldiers of
Christ will scarce be taught o' that fashion."

Diverse likewise were the maids' fantasies. Meg said she would not have
bidden at Shuldham one day longer than she was forced. Joan said she
liked not ill at Sempringham, only for being alone. But Isabel, as she
sat afore the fire with me on her lap, the even of her coming home--
Isabel had ever petted me--and Dame Hilda asked her touching her life at
Chicksand--Isabel said, gazing with a far-away look into the red ashes--

"I shall go back to Chicksand, some day, if I may win leave of mine
elders."

"Why, Dame Isabel!" quoth Dame Hilda in some surprise. "Liked you so
well as that?"

"Ay, I liked well," she said, in that dreamy fashion. "Not that I did
not miss you all, Dame; and in especial my babe here,--who is no longer
a babe"--and she smiled down at me. "And verily, I could see that sins
be not shut out by convent walls, but rather shut in. Yet--"

"Ay?" said Dame Hilda when she stayed. I think she wanted to make her
talk.

"I scarce know how to say it," quoth she. "But it seemed to me that for
those who would have it so, Satan was shut in with them, and pleasure
was shut out. And also, for those who would have it so, God was shut in
with them, and snares and temptations--some of them--were shut out.
Only some: but it was something to be rid of them. If it were possible
to have only those who wanted to shut out the world, and to shut
themselves in with God! That is the theory: and that would be Heaven on
earth. But it does not work in practice."

"Yet you would fain return thither?" said Dame Hilda.

Isabel looked