s the `big book of
life,'" answered Wenlock. "He also gave me such instructions as time
and opportunity would allow, though there are many more things I should
like to learn. I have, however, read not a few books; I can handle a
singlestick as well as many older men, can ride, row, and shoot with
arquebuse or crossbow, and I can write letters on various subjects, as I
will prove to you, Mistress Mary, if you will allow me, when I again
begin my wanderings; for I doubt whether my father will long remain in
this big city. He is constantly complaining that the times are out of
joint; and although we have been in England but a few weeks, he
threatens again speedily to leave it."

"That were a pity," said Mary. "I prefer the green fields, and the
woods, and the gay flowers, and the songs of birds, to the narrow
streets, the dingy houses, and the cries of London; but yet I opine that
happiness comes from within, and that, if the heart is at rest,
contentment may be found under all circumstances."

"You are a philosopher," said Wenlock.

"No," answered Mary quietly, "I am a Quakeress, an you please: and our
principles afford us that peace and contentment which they of the world
know not of."

"I must get you to teach me to be a Quaker, then," said Wenlock. "I
have been listening attentively to your father's discourses to mine, and
even he, who was so much opposed to such ideas, has greatly been
attracted by them; and, to tell you the truth, Mistress Mead, I have
made up my mind that they are the best that I have heard of. There may
be better, but I know not of them."

"Oh, no, no. There can be no better than such as are to be found in the
Book of Life," said Mary. "You must judge of our principles by that,
and that alone. If they are not according to that, they are wrong; but
if they are according to that, there can be none better."

Wenlock, as he talked to the fair young Quakeress, felt himself every
moment becoming more and more a convert to her opinions; and had not his
father been present, he would then and there have undoubtedly confessed
himself a Quaker.

The young people had found their way, somehow or other, to the bow
window at the further end of the room, their elders, meantime, carrying
on a conversation by themselves, not altogether of a different
character. Mead, aided by his wife, was explaining to Christison, more
fully than he had hitherto done, the Quaker doctrines. Could he, a man
of the