other, quietly.

"Good lack! but which of the saints must I ask for it?" quoth she.
"I'll give him all the wax candles in Ludlow, a week afore I die. I'd
rather not have it sooner."

"When go you about to die, Dame?"

"Our Lady love us! That cannot I say."

"Then you shall scarce know the week before, I think."

"Oh, no! but the saint shall know. Look you, Dame, to be too much of a
saint should stand sore in man's way. I could not sing, nor dance, nor
lake me a bit, if I were a saint; and that fashion of saintliness you
speak of must needs be sorest of all. If I do but just get it to go to
Heaven with, that shall serve me the best."

"I thought they sang in Heaven," saith Isabel.

"Bless you, Damsel!--nought but Church music."

"Dame Hilda, I marvel if you would be happy in Heaven."

"Oh, I should be like, when I got there."

My Lady shook her head.

"For that," quoth she, "you must be partaker of the Divine nature.
Which means not, doing good works contrary to your liking, but having
the nature which delights in doing them."

"Oh, ay, that will come when we be there."

"On the contrary part, they that have it not here on earth shall not win
there. They only that be partakers of Christ may look to enter Heaven.
And no man that partaketh Christ's merits can miss to partake Christ's
nature."

"Marry, then but few shall win there."

"So do I fear," saith my Lady.

"Dame, under your good pleasure," saith Dame Hilda, looking her
earnestly in the face, "where gat you such notions? They be something
new. At the least, never heard I your Ladyship so to speak aforetime."

My Lady's cheek faintly flushed.

"May God forgive me," saith she, "all these years to have locked up his
Word, which was burning in mine own heart! Yet in good sooth, Dame, you
are partly right. Ere I went to Skipton, I was like one that seeth a
veiled face, or that gazeth through smoked glass. But now mine eyes
have beheld the face of Him that was veiled, and I have spoken with Him,
as man speaketh with his friend. And if you would know who helped me
thereto, it was an holy hermit, by name Richard Rolle, that did divers
times visit me in my prison at Skipton. And he knows Him full well."

"Dame!" saith Dame Hilda, looking somewhat anxiously on my mother, "I do
trust you go not about to die, nor to hie in cloister and leave all
these poor babes! Do bethink you, I pray, ere you do either."

My Lady smiled. "Nay, good my D