"I had best take thee home without more ado."

It was too late, however, the children were delighted, and perfectly
willing that Aldonza should own the bird, so they might hear it speak,
and thus the introduction was over. Aldonza and her daw were conveyed
to Dame Alice More, a stout, good-tempered woman, who had too many
dependents about her house to concern herself greatly about the
introduction of another.

And thus Aldonza was installed in the long, low, two-storied red house
which was to be her place of home-like service.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

CLOTH OF GOLD ON THE SEAMY SIDE.

"Then you lost
The view of earthly glory men might say
Till this time pomp was single; but now married
To one above itself."
Shakespeare.

If Giles Headley murmured at Aldonza's removal, it was only to Perronel,
and that discreet woman kept it to herself.

In the summer of 1519 he was out of his apprenticeship, and though
Dennet was only fifteen, it was not uncommon for brides to be even
younger. However, the autumn of that year was signalised by a fresh
outbreak of the sweating sickness, apparently a sort of influenza, and
no festivities could be thought of. The King and Queen kept at a safe
distance from London, and escaped, so did the inmates of the pleasant
house at Chelsea; but the Cardinal, who, as Lord Chancellor, could not
entirely absent himself from Westminster, was four times attacked by it,
and Dean Colet, a far less robust man, had it three times, and sank at
last under it. Sir Thomas More went to see his beloved old friend, and
knowing Ambrose's devotion, let the young man be his attendant. Nor
could those who saw the good man ever forget his peaceful farewells,
grieving only for the old mother who had lived with him in the Deanery,
and in the ninetieth year of her age, thus was bereaved of the last of
her twenty-one children. For himself, he was thankful to be taken away
from the evil times he already beheld threatening his beloved Saint
Paul's, as well as the entire Church both in England and abroad; looking
back with a sad, sweet smile to the happy Oxford days, when he, with
More and Erasmus:

"Strained the watchful eye
If chance the golden hours were nigh
By youthful hope seen gleaming round her walls."

"But," said he, as he laid his hand in blessing for the last time on
Ambrose's head, "let men say what they will, do thou cling fast to the
Church, nor let thyself be swept away. There a