ch occurrence he reserved his
grimaces for other company.

Mistress Flint was entirely indifferent to the question; but since every
body else was setting up an idol, she followed in the crowd. If Mr
Flint cared, he kept his own counsel. Little Dickon clapped his hands
at the pretty colours and bright gilding; and Will innocently asked,
"Mother, wherefore had we ne'er Saint Christopher aforetime?"

"Come now, be a good lad, and run to Gossip Hickman for a candle!" was
his mother's convincing answer.

But this is anticipating, and we must retrace our steps to that sixth
Sunday for which Agnes was waiting in patient hope. Very anxiously she
watched to see whether, when dinner was over, she would be despatched to
Aldgate or Bermondsey. But it happened at last as she desired; there
was nowhere to send her. Mistress Winter, in her usual considerate
style of language, gave Agnes to understand that she had no wish to see
her again before dark; and, clad in the old patched serge which was her
Sunday dress, the poor drudge crept timidly into Saint Paul's Cathedral.

From the Lady Chapel, soft and low, came the chant of the Virgin's
Litany. The fashionable people, in rich attire, were promenading up and
down the aisle known as "Paul's Walk." In the side chapels a few
worshippers lingered before the shrines; and round a lectern, in one
corner of the nave, were gathered a little knot of men and women,
waiting there in the almost forlorn hope that some priest, more zealous
than the rest, might come up and read to them. They could not now
expect any layman to have the courage to do so. Agnes joined this
group.

"I misdoubt there'll be no reading this day," said a grey-headed man.

"Ne'er a priest in Paul's careth to do the same," responded a
forlorn-looking woman. "They be an idle set of wine-bibbers, every man
Jack of them."

"Hush thee, Goody!" whispered a second woman, giving a friendly push to
the first. "Keep a civil tongue in thine head, prithee, as whatso thy
thoughts be."

"Thoughts make no noise," said the old man, smiling grimly.

All at once there was a little stir among the group, as the tall, gaunt
figure of the Black Friar was seen climbing the steps of the desk.

"Brethren!" said the voice which Agnes so well remembered, "let us read
together the word of God."

And, beginning just where he had opened the book, he read to them the
story of the raising of Lazarus. He gave no word of comment till h