and smiling lips, and arch countenance would not bring many a
customer, but he knew well that his mother would never have sent his
sister to be thus exposed, and he let her pout, or laughed away her
refusal by telling her that he was bound not to let a butler's daughter
demean herself to be stared at by all the common folk, who would cheapen
her wares.

And when she did coax him to take her to Bristol on any errand she
could invent, to sell her yarns, or buy pins, or even a ribbon, he was
inexorable in leaving her under Mrs. Lightfoot's care, and she had to
submit, even though it sometimes involved saying her catechism to Dr.
Eales. Yet that always ended in the old man's petting her. It was only
from her chatter that the old clergyman ever knew of the proposal that
Stead had rejected for conscience's sake. It vexed the lad so much that
he really could not bear to think of it, and it would come over him now
and then, was it all for nothing? Would the Church ever lift up her head
again? or would Mr. Woodley be always in possession at Elmwood Church,
where everyone seemed to be content with him. The Kentons went thither.
It was hardly safe to abstain, for a fine upon absence was still the
law of the land, though seldom enforced; and Dr. Eales who considered
Presbyterianism by far the least unorthodox and most justifiable sect,
had advised Stead not to allow himself or the others altogether to lose
the habit of public worship, but to abstain from Communions which might
be an act of separation from the Church, and which could not be accepted
by her children as genuine. Such was the advice of most of the divines
of the English Church in this time of eclipse; and though Stead, and
still less Patience, did not altogether follow the reasoning, they
obeyed, while aware that they incurred suspicion from the squire by not
coming to "the table."

The new woodward, Peter Pierce, was not one of the villagers as usual,
but had been a soldier in one of the regiments of the Earl of Essex, in
which Mr. Elmwood's eldest son had served.

Instead of succeeding to old Tomkins's lodge in the great wood, he had
a new one built for him, so as to command the opening of Hermit's Gulley
towards the village, and one of the Bristol roads. Could this be for the
sake of watching over anything so insignificant as the Kentons?

The copse on their side of the brook was their own, free to do what they
chose with except cutting down the timber trees, but