did
not usually trouble her head with politics. She was standing by the
fire with a frying-pan in her hand, arrested in her occupation by
surprise and curiosity, as Mistress Flint had been in hers.

"Why, what think you? Folk say that heard the same, that the King's
Highness hath left the Crown by will to his cousin, my Lady Jane Dudley,
and hath put by his own sisters; and she shall be proclaimed as
to-morrow in Cheapside."

"Dear heart alive!" cried Mistress Winter. "And what say my Ladies the
King's sisters, that be thus left out in the cold?"

"That is as it may be," replied Mistress Flint mysteriously. "My good
man saith, if the Lady Mary suffer all tamely, then is she not the maid
he took her to be."

"Lack-a-day! but I do verily hope siege shall be ne'er laid to London!
It should go ill with us that dwell in the outskirts."

"You say well, Gossip, in very deed. The blessed saints have a care of
us! as metrusteth they shall."

"Not they belike!" growled Mistress Winter, resuming her suspended
proceedings with the frying-pan. "They shall be every one a-looking out
for the Lady Jane."

Mistress Flint came nearer, and replied in a mysterious whisper.

"Scantly so, as methinks, Gossip, when she is of the new learning, if
folk speak sooth touching her. The saints and angels shall trouble them
rare little about her. Trust me, they shall go with the Lady Mary,
every man of them."

"Say you so?" demanded Mistress Winter. "Why, then shall the old
learning come in again, an' she win."

"Ay, I warrant you!" responded her neighbour.

Mistress Winter fried her rashers with a meditative face.

"Doll!" said she, when Mistress Flint and her dish-cloth had departed,
"whither is become Saint Thomas of Canterbury?"

"Go to! what wis I?" returned Dorothy. "He was cast with yon old lumber
in the back attic, when King Edward's Grace come in. He hath been o' no
count this great while."

"Fetch him forth," said Mistress Winter; "and, Agnes, do thou cleanse
him well. If my Lady Jane win, why, 'tis but that we love not to have
no dirt in the house: but if my Lady Mary, then shall he go to the
gilder, and I will set him of an high place, for to be seen. Haste thee
about it."

Half an hour later, Agnes (to whom Dorothy deputed the dusty search)
came down from the attic, carrying a battered wooden doll on a stand,
which had once been gaudily painted, but was now worn and soiled,
deprived of an arm, and gashed