thereby; yet rather than lose your good custom, seeing for whom it
is--"

"Very good," said the Mayoress, "put it up."

Amy knew that the purple placard had cost her mother 16 shillings 8
pence, and had been slightly damaged since it came into her hands. She
knew also that Mrs Clere would confess the fraud to the priest, would
probably be told to repeat the Lord's Prayer three times over as a
penance for it, would gabble through the words as fast as possible, and
would then consider her sin quite done away with, and her profit of 7
shillings 4 pence cheaply secured. She knew also that the Mayoress, in
all probability, was aware that Mrs Clere's protestation about not
gaining a single penny was a mere flourish of words, not at all meant to
be accepted as a fact.

"Is there aught of news stirring, an' it like you, Madam?" asked Mrs
Clere, as she rolled up the placard inside out, and secured it with
tape.

"I know of none, truly," answered the Mayoress, "save to-morrow's
burning, the which I would were over for such spectacles like me not--
not that I would save evil folks from the due penalty of their sins, but
that I would some less displeasant manner of execution might be found.
Truly, what with the heat, and the dust, and the close crowds that
gather, 'tis no dainty matter to behold."

"You say truth, Madam. Indeed, the last burning we had, my daughter
here was so close pressed in the crowd, and so near the fire, she fair
swooned, and had to be borne thence. But who shall suffer to-morrow,
an' it like you? for I heard nought thereabout."

Mrs Clere presented the little parcel as she spoke.

"Only two women," said the Mayoress, taking her purchase: "not nigh so
great a burning as the last--so very likely the crowd shall be less
also."

The crowd was not much less on the waste place by the Lexden Road, when
on the 17th of September, 1557, those two martyrs were brought forth to
die: Agnes Bongeor, full of joy and triumph, praising God that at length
she was counted worthy to suffer for His Name's sake; Margaret Thurston,
the disciple who had denied Him, and for whom therefore there could be
no triumph; yet, even now, a meek and fervent appeal from the heart's
core, of "Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!"

As the chain was being fastened around them a voice came from the
crowd--one of those mysterious voices never to be traced to a speaker,
perpetually heard at martyrdoms.

"`He remembered that they wer