rse his own flesh and blood and set us all by the ears.

"Oh, hold your chat, woman," cried Eli angrily; "you are still on the
side of the ill-doer, You are cheap served; your weakness made the
rogues what they are; I was for correcting them in their youth: for
sore ills, sharp remedies; but you still sided with their faults, and
undermined me, and baffled wise severity. And you, Margaret, leave
comforting her that ought rather to comfort you; for what is her hurt
to yours? But she never had a grain of justice under her skin; and never
will. So come thou to me, that am thy father from this hour."

This was a command; so she kissed Catherine, and went tottering to him,
and he put her on a chair beside him, and she laid her feeble head on
his honest breast; but not a tear: it was too deep for that.

"Poor lamb," said he. After a while--"Come, good folks," said true Eli,
in a broken voice, to Jorian and Joan, "we are in a little trouble, as
you see; but that is no reason you should starve. For our Lady's sake,
fall to; and add not to my grief the reputation of a churl. What the
dickens!" added he, with a sudden ghastly attempt at stout-heartedness,
"the more knaves I have the luck to get shut of, the more my need of
true men and women, to help me clear the dish, and cheer mine eye with
honest faces about me where else were gaps. Fall to, I do entreat ye."

Catherine, sobbing, backed his request. Poor, simple, antique,
hospitable souls! Jorian, whose appetite, especially since his illness,
was very keen, was for acting on this hospitable invitation; but Joan
whispered a word in his ear, and he instantly drew back, "Nay, I'll
touch no meat that Holy Church hath cursed."

"In sooth, I forgot," said Eli apologetically. "My son, who was reared
at my table, hath cursed my victuals. That seems strange. Well, what God
wills, man must bow to."

The supper was flung out into the yard.

Jorian took his wife home, and heavy sadness reigned in Eli's house that
night.

Meantime, where was Clement?

Lying at full length upon the floor of the convent church, with his lips
upon the lowest step of the altar, in an indescribable state of terror,
misery, penitence, and self-abasement: through all which struggled
gleams of joy that Margaret was alive.

Night fell and found him lying there weeping and praying; and morning
would have found him there too; but he suddenly remembered that,
absorbed in his own wrongs and Margaret's, he ha