we have much this morrow to thank God for, whereof I came to tell thee."

"Why, what has come, trow?"

The glad light rose again to Mr Ewring's eyes.

"Gideon has come, and hath subdued the Midianites!" he answered, with a
ring of triumph in his voice. "King David is come, and the Philistines
will take flight, and Israel shall sit in peace under his vine and
fig-tree. May God save Elizabeth our Queen!"

"Good lack, but you never mean _that_!" cried Dorothy in a voice as
delighted as his own. "Why then, Mistress 'll be back to her own, and
them poor little dears 'll be delivered from them black snakes, and
there 'll be Bible-reading and sermons again."

"Ay, every one of them, I trust. And a man may say what he will that is
right, without looking first round to see if a spy be within hearing.
We are free, Dorothy, once more."

"Eh, but it do feel like a dream! I shall have to pinch myself to make
sure I'm awake. But, Master, do you think it is sure? She haven't
changed, think you?"

Mr Ewring shook his head. "The Lady Elizabeth suffered with us," he
said, "and she will not forsake us now. No, Dorothy, she has not
changed: she is not one to change. Let us not distrust either her or
the Lord. Ah, He knew what He would do! It was to be a sharp, short
hour of tribulation, through which His Church was to pass, to purify,
and try, and make her white: and now the land shall have rest forty
years, that she may sing to Him a new song on the sea of glass. Those
five years have lit the candle of England's Church, and as our good old
Bishop said in dying, by God's grace it shall never be put out."

"Well, sure, it's a blessed day!"

"Dorothy, can you compass to drive with me to Hedingham again? I think
long till those poor children be rescued. And the nuns will be ready
and glad to give them up; they'll not want to be found with Protestant
children in their keeping--children, too, of a martyred man."

"Master Ewring, give me but time to get me tidied and my hood, and I'll
go with you this minute, if you will. I was mopping out the loft. When
Mistress do come back, she shall find her house as clean as she'd have
had it if she'd been here, and that's clean enough, I can tell you."

"Right, friend, `Faithful in a little, faithful also in much.' Dorothy,
you'd have made a good martyr."

"Me, Master?"

Mr Ewring smiled. "Well, whether shall it be to-morrow, or leave over
Sunday?"

"If it liked you, M