e frequently he stopped her, and inquired into her
spiritual welfare. She had many a difficulty in which to ask his
counsel; many a trouble in which it was a relief to seek (and always to
find) his sympathy. He was the only friend she had who spoke the
language of Canaan. And it was far less as a priest than as a friend
that Agnes regarded him. He was as different from old Father Dan, the
Cordelier, as Mistress Flint differed from Mistress Winter. Agnes never
knew, when preparing for one of those abhorred periodical interviews
with the Cordelier, what he might say to her, or rather, what he might
not say. She shrank with horror from his inquisitive questioning, and
not much less from his petty humiliating penances. Father Dan's remedy
for angry words was to fast for a week on bread and water; for pride, to
lick a cross in the dust of the church floor; for envy and covetousness,
the administration of a cat-o'-nine-tails on the shoulders. The Black
Friar, on the contrary, led Agnes out of herself altogether. He had
only one topic, of infinite variety, for it was Jesus Christ. Only once
had Agnes asked him whether he would recommend her to administer "the
discipline" to herself, as a cure for discontent and murmuring.

"If thy shoulders be discontented, why, by all means," answered Friar
Laurence, with his grave smile; "but if it be thine heart that
murmureth, wherefore chastise thy shoulders?"

Agnes never put the question again, and never had recourse to the
discipline. Of fasting, poor girl, she had already too much for her
bodily profit, without any adventitious use of it. And when she began
to pray in reality, the rosary was very soon dropped. When a man's
heart is in earnest, to keep count of his words is not possible.

Meanwhile, in the outer world, the downward progress was very rapid.
One after another the Protestant Bishops were committed to prison, and
the chief preachers shared their fate. The first mass was sung at Saint
Bartholomew's on the eleventh of August, when the people were ready to
tear the officiating priest in pieces; but by the twenty-fourth of the
same month it was heard in other churches in London, and the hearers
were becoming reconciled to the innovation. The once powerful Duke of
Northumberland was beheaded on Tower Hill, notwithstanding his
profession of Popery at the last hour; the married priests were
deprived; the French Protestant residents were banished; the altar was
re