nothing he told me not. You see they
couldn't do nothing to me save burn me, as they did Father, and then I
should go to Father, and all would be right directly. It's much better
for them all that they are safe there, and I'll try to be glad--thought
here's nobody left for me. Father'll have company: I must try and think
of that. I thought he'd find nobody he knew but Mother, but if they've
all gone too, there'll be plenty. And I suppose there'll be some holy
angels to look after us, because God isn't gone away, you see: He's
there and here too. He'll help me still to look after Will and Baby,
now I haven't"--a sob interrupted the words--"haven't got Father.
Good-bye, Dolly! Kiss me, please. Nobody never kisses me now."

"Thou poor little dear!" cried Dorothy, fairly melted, and sobbing over
Cissy as she gave her half-a-dozen kisses at least. "The Lord bless
thee, and be good to thee! I'm sure He'll take proper vengeance on
every body as isn't. I wouldn't like to be them as ill-used thee.
They'll have a proper bill to pay in the next world, if they don't get
it in this. Poor little pretty dear!"

"You will drink a cup of ale and eat a manchet?" asked Sister Joan of
Dorothy.

A manchet was a cake of the best bread.

"No, I thank you, Sister, I am not a-hungered," was the answer.

"But, Dolly, you did not come all the way from Colchester?" said Cissy.

"Ay, I did so, my dear, in the miller's cart, and I'm journeying back in
the same. I covenanted to meet him down at the end of yonder lane at
three o'clock, and methinks I had best be on my way."

"Ay, you have no time to lose," responded Sister Joan.

Dorothy found Mr Ewring waiting for her at the end of the lane.

"Have you had to eat, Dorothy?" was his first question when she had
climbed up beside him.

"Never a bite or sup in _that_ house, Master, I thank you," was
Dorothy's rejoinder. "If I'd been starving o' hunger, I wouldn't have
touched a thing."

"Have you seen the children?"

"I've seen Cissy. That was enough and to spare."

"What do they with her?"

"They are working hard with both hands to make an angel of her at the
soonest--that's what they are doing. It's not what they mean to do.
They want to make her a devil, or one of the devil's children, which
comes to the same thing: but the Lord 'll not suffer that, or I'm a
mistaken woman. They are trying to bend her, and they never will.
She'll break first. So they'll break her, an