he Heath,
and a heavy load for little arms, and I'm main thankful. Will you come
in a bit and rest you?" he said to Rose.

But Rose declined, for she knew her mother would expect her to come back
at once. She kissed Cissy, and told her, whenever she had a load to
carry either way, to be sure she looked in at the Blue Bell, when Rose
would help her if she possibly could: and giving the jar to Johnson, she
bade him good-night, and turned back up the lane. Sir Thomas had walked
on, as Rose supposed: at any rate, he was not to be seen. She went
nearly a mile without seeing any one, until Margaret Thurston's cottage
came in sight. As Rose began to go a little more slowly, she heard
footsteps behind her, and the next minute she was joined--to her
surprise--by the priest.

"My daughter," he said, in a soft, kind voice, "I think thou art Rose
Allen?"

Rose dropped a courtesy, and said she was.

"I have been wishful to speak with some of thy father's household," said
Sir Thomas, in the same gentle way: "so that I am fain to meet thee
forth this even. Tell me, my child, is there illness in the house or
no?"

Rose breathed quickly: she guessed pretty well what was coming.

"No, Father," she answered; "we are all in good health, God be thanked
for that same."

"Truly. I am glad to hear thee so speak, my daughter, and in especial
that thou rememberest to thank God. But wherefore, then, being in good
health, have ye not come to give thanks to God in His own house, these
eight Sundays past? Ye have been regular aforetime, since ye were back
from the Bishop's Court. Surely it is not true--I do hope and trust it
is not true, that ye be slipping yet again into your past evil ways of
ill opinions and presumptuous sin?"

The reason why the Mounts had not been to church was because the
services were such as they could no longer join in. Queen Mary had
brought back the Popish mass, and all the images which King Edward had
done away with; so that to go to church was not to worship God but to
worship idols. And so terrible was the persecution Mary had allowed to
be set up, that the penalty for refusing to do this was to be burnt to
death for what she called heresy.

It was a terrible position for a young girl in which Rose Allen stood
that night. This man not only held her life in his hands, but also
those of her mother and her step-father. If he chose to inform against
them, the end of it might be death by fire. For