me of Rose Allen? and Bessy Foulkes? and
Mistress Mount, and all of them?"

"All gone, my dear heart--all with thy father."

"Are they all gone?" said Cissy with another sob, "Isn't there one
left?"

"Not one of them."

"Then if we came out, we shouldn't find nobody?"

"Prithee reckon not, Cicely," said the nun, "that thou art likely to
come out. There is no such likelihood at all whilst our good Queen
reigneth; and if it please God, she shall have a son after her that
shall be true to the Catholic faith, as she is, and not suffer evil
courses and naughty heretics to be any more in the realm. Ye will abide
here till it be plainly seen whether God shall grant to thee and thy
sister the grace of a vocation; and if not, it shall be well seen to
that ye be in care of good Catholic folk, that shall look to it ye go in
the right way. So prithee, suffer not thy fancy to deceive thee with
any thought of going forth of this house of religion. When matters be
somewhat better established, and the lands whereof the Church hath been
robbed are given back to her, and all the religious put back in their
houses, or new ones built, then will England be an Isle of Saints as in
olden time, and men may rejoice thereat."

Cissy listened to this long speech, which she only understood in part,
but she gathered that the nuns meant to keep her a prisoner as long as
they could.

"But Sister Joan," said she, "you don't know, do you, what God is going
to do? Perhaps he will give us another good king or queen, like King
Edward. I ask Him to do, every day. But, please, what is a vocation?"

"Thou dost, thou wicked maid? I never heard thee."

"But I don't ask you, Sister Joan. I ask God. And I think He'll do it,
too. What is a vocation, please?"

"What I'm afeared thou wilt never have, thou sinful heretic child--the
call to become a holy Sister."

"Who is to call me? I am a sister now; I'm Will's and Baby's sister.
Nobody can't call me to be a sister to nobody else," said Cissy, getting
very negative in her earnestness.

Sister Joan rose from her seat. "The time is up," said she. "Say
farewell to thy friend."

"Farewell, Dorothy dear," said Cissy, clinging to the one person she
knew, who seemed to belong to her past, as she never would have thought
of doing to Dorothy Denny in bygone days. "Please give Mistress Wade my
duty, when she comes home, and say I'm trying to do as Father bade me,
and I'll never, never believe