take it they'd snatch it away."

"I'll tell you what, if I had known that a bit sooner, they'd have had a
piece of my mind," said Dorothy.

"With some thorns on it, I guess," commented the miller.

"Eh, dear, but I marvel if I could have kept my fingers off 'em! And
they beat thee, Will?"

"Hard," said Will.

"And thee, Cissy?"

"Yes--sometimes," said Cissy quietly. "But I did not care for that, if
they'd have left alone harassing Will. You see, he's younger than me,
and he doesn't remember Father as well. If there hadn't been any right
and wrong about it, I could not have done what would vex Father."

Tim trotted on for a while, and Will was deeply interested in his
driving lesson. About a mile from Colchester, Mr Ewring rather
suddenly pulled up.

"Love! is that you?" he said.

John Love, who was partly hidden by some bushes, came out and showed
himself.

"Ay, and I well-nigh marvel it is either you or me," said he
significantly.

"Truly, you may say so. I believe we were aforetime the best noted
`heretics' in all Colchester. And yet here we be, on the further side
of these five bitter years, left to rejoice together."

"Love, I would your Agnes would look in on me a time or two," said
Dorothy. "I have proper little wit touching babes, and she might help
me to a thing or twain."

"You'll have as much as the nuns, shouldn't marvel," said Love, smiling.
"But I'll bid Agnes look in. You're about to care for the little ones,
then?"

"Ay, till they get better care," said Dorothy, simply.

"You'll win the Lord's blessing with them. Good den! By the way, have
you heard that Jack Thurston's still Staunch?"

"Is he so? I'm right glad."

"Ay, they say--Bartle it was told a neighbour of mine--he's held firm
till the priests were fair astonied at him; they thought they'd have
brought him round, and that was why they never burned him. He'll come
forth now, I guess."

"Not a doubt of it. There shall be some right happy deliverances all
over the realm, and many an happy meeting," said Mr Ewring, with a
faint sigh at the thought that no such blessedness was in store for him,
until he should reach the gate of the Celestial City. "Good den, Jack."

They drove in at the North Gate, down Balcon Lane, with a passing
greeting to Amy Clere, who was taking down mantles at the shop door, and
whose whole face lighted up at the sight, and turned through the great
archway into the courtyard of the King's