who may know what she said to God, or
yet more what He told to her? She had never been taught to pray; she
could not be." Avice's only notion of prayer was repeating a form of
words, and keeping time by a string of beads. "But I shall always think
that in some way beyond our comprehension, my darling could speak to
God. And on the evening of the Invention of the Cross"--which is May
3rd--"she spoke to Him in Heaven."

"And did the Lady Queen sorrow very much, Aunt? I suppose, though,
great ladies like her would not care as much as poor people."

"Wouldst thou, child? Ah, a mother is a mother, let her be a cottager
or a queen. And she sorrowed so sorely that for weeks afterwards she
lay ill, and all the skill of her physicians could avail nothing. The
Lord King, too, fell sick of a tertian fever, which held him many days,
and I believe it was out of sheer anguish for his dearest child. He
commanded a brass image of her to be placed on the tomb, but ere it was
finished he would have one of silver: and he gave fifty shillings a year
to the hermit of Charing, for a priest to pray daily for her in the
chapel of the hermitage."

"Do you think she is still in Purgatory, Aunt?"

Avice's religion, as taught not by the Word of God, but the traditions
of men, led her to be doubtful on that point. But her heart broke its
way through the bonds.

"What, my white dove? my little unspotted darling, that never wilfully
sinned against God and holy Church? Child, if our holy Father the Pope
were to tell me himself that she was there, I would not believe him. Do
the angels go to Purgatory? Nay, I do verily believe that, seeing her
infirmity, Christ our Lord did all the work of salvation for her, and
that she sings now before our Father's face."

Poor Avice! she could get no further. But we, who know God's Word, know
that there is but one Mediator between God and man, and that He has
offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the
whole world. Before Bertha could reply, an answer came unexpectedly
from the dark corner.

"Your God must be hard to propitiate," said the young Jewess. "In old
times, after the sacrifice was offered, a man was cleansed from sin. He
had not to cleanse himself by his own pain."

"But you are heathens," said Avice, feeling it a condescension to argue
with a Jew. "Our religion is better than yours."

"How?" was Hester's rejoinder.

"Because we have been redeemed by