Cathedral was carried down
below the veil that had been hung up to hide from the non-communicants
the consecration of the elements, and set north and south; for, as yet,
the customary place of the table was east and west.

Strange tales were told this Lent of fearful and marvellous visions and
sights seen by many persons. Beside Merton Abbey, and in other places,
men in armour were seen in the air, who came down to the earth and
faded; and in Sussex were three suns shining at once. John Avery made
himself merry over these rumours, in which he had no faith. "The three
suns," said he, "were but some matter of optical philosophy, which could
readily be expounded of such as were learned in it; and for the men in
armour, when he saw them he would believe them." Dr Thorpe considered
the wonderful sights omens of coming ill, but from Esther they won very
scant respect.

In May the party from the Lamb dined with Mr Holland, at whose house
they met Mr Rose, and Mr and Mrs Underhill. The last-named gentleman
could talk of nothing but the expected marriage of the young King with a
Princess of France. This Princess was the hapless Elizabeth, afterwards
affianced to Don Carlos, and eventually married to his father, the
wretched Philip the Second. At this time she was just five years old.

"But," said Isoult, "she shall be a Papist, trow?"

"She shall be a Papist of mighty few years old," said Mr Underhill,
laughing; "and we will quickly make a Protestant of her. I hear she is
a mighty pretty child, her hair dark and shining, her eyes wondrous
bright, and her smile exceeding sweet."

"Sweeter than Thekla Rose's?" asked Mrs Underhill, herself smiling.

"Scantly, methinks," answered Mr Underhill. "How like to a man's
fantasy of an angel doth that maid look!"

Robin looked very unlike an angel, for he appeared extremely
uncomfortable, but he said nothing.

From the King's marriage they came to that of the Princess Mary; and Mr
Underhill--who, being a Gentleman Pensioner, with friends at Court, was
allowed to speak with authority--gave the name of her projected
bridegroom as "the Lord Lewis of Portugal. Wherein," pursued he,
"Father Rose and I may amend our differences, seeing that she should
first be called to renounce the succession."

Mr Rose smiled, and said, "A happy ending of a troublous matter, if it
were so."

But, as the reader well knows, the troublous matter was not doomed to
have so happy an end.

The