re I went.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A MEETING WITH MASTER OVERTON.

I left Smithfield far behind me, and found myself again amidst the
streets of the City, when, overcome by my feelings, I sank on one side
of the road, just within an archway. How long I remained there I know
not, when I heard a voice addressing me by name:

"Rise, my boy; rise, Ernst Verner; I will conduct you to your home."

I looked up and saw the friar whom I had met in the morning.

"I am thankful I found you," he said, "or in your fainting state you
might have suffered injury from some of the thieves and cut-purses who
infest this City. What has happened to you?"

I told him that I had fled from the burnings at Smithfield.

"I do not wonder at that," he answered; "it was a fearful sight."

"And the poor lady with whom I saw you on her way thither, has she
escaped?" I asked.

"No; she was among those who suffered death. She witnessed a good
confession, and died, I believe, rejoicing, without feeling one pang of
pain."

While the friar was speaking I gradually recovered.

"We will now set forward," he said, "for I must leave this City, and
continue my search for my friend, who has, I believe, returned to
England. I did not say this to you before, but I do so now I know that
I may trust you. Should you by chance meet him, let him know that he
who was once Friar Roger is so no longer, and earnestly desires to see
him."

I assured him that I should be ready to help him, as well as Master
Overton, and that I believed nothing would induce me to betray them.

"Yes, I know that I can trust you," he said. "And now I have to ask
you, did not the lady give you a packet, desiring you to carry out the
wishes which are therein expressed?"

"Yes," I answered, feeling in the bosom of my frock, in which I placed
it. "I have it here safe, and hope to do as she desired."

"It might, however, be better if you were to give it to me," he
observed. "You are but a youth, and might lose it, or may be unable to
fulfil her request."

I could not help looking at the speaker suspiciously as he said this.
Was his object to deprive me of the packet, that he might make use of it
for his own purposes? If such was the case, he might have done so while
I lay in a swoon.

"You will pardon me, my friend," I answered, after a minute's
consideration; "that poor lady confided the packet to me, almost with
her dying breath, and I purpose, if I have the power,