her of how they nailed pear trees against the walls in
her Lincolnshire home.

'Our garden man would say ...' she began a sentence. Her eye fell upon one
of these very crumpled balls of paper. It lay upon the table and it
confused her to think that it appeared like an apple. 'Would say ... would
say ...' she faltered.

He looked at her with enquiring eyes, round in his great head.

'It is too late,' she finished.

'Even too late for what?' he asked.

'Too late in the year to set the trees back,' she answered and her fit
of nervousness had passed. 'For there is a fluid in trees that runneth
upward in the spring of the year to greet the blessed sun.'

'Why, what a wise lady is this!' he said, half earnest. 'I would I had
such an adviser as thou hast,' he continued to his daughter.

He frowned for a moment, remembering that, being who he was, he should
stand in need of no advice.

'See you,' he said to Katharine. 'You have spoken of many things and
wisely, after a woman's fashion of book-learning. Now I am minded that
you should hear me speak upon the Word of God which is a man's matter
and a King's. This day sennight I am to have brought to my closet a
heretic, Dr Barnes. If ye will ye may hear me confound him with goodly
doctrines.'

He raised both his eyebrows heavily and looked first at the Lady Mary.

'You, I am minded, shall hear a word of true doctrine.'

And to Katharine, 'I would hear how you think that I can manage a
disputation. For the fellow is the sturdiest rogue with a yard of
tongue to wag.'

Katharine maintained a duteous silence; the Lady Mary stood with her
hands clasped before her. Upon Katharine he smiled suddenly and
heavily.

'I grow too old to be a match for thee in the learning of this world.
Thy tongue has outstripped me since I am become stale.... But hear me
in the other make of talk.'

'I ask no better,' Katharine said.

'Therefore,' he finished, 'I am minded that you, Mog, and your ladies
all, do move your residences from here to my house at Hampton. This is
an old and dark place; there you shall be better honoured.'

He lay back in his chair and was pleased with the care that he took of
his daughter. Katharine glided intently across the smooth bare floor
and took the ball of paper in her hand. His eyes followed her and he
moved his head round after her movements, heavily, and without any
motion of his great body. He was in a comfortable mood, having slept
well the night