ery priest will inform
you. Ay, and more than that, you have spoken degradingly of the blessed
appeal to God in the combat of ordeal. Take heed! for the Holy Church
is awakened to watch her sheepfold, and to extirpate heresy by fire and
steel; so much I warn thee of."

Catharine uttered a suppressed exclamation; and, with difficulty
compelling herself to assume an appearance of composure, promised her
father that, if he would spare her any farther discussion of the subject
till tomorrow morning, she would then meet him, determined to make a
full discovery of her sentiments.

With this promise Simon Glover was obliged to remain contented, though
extremely anxious for the postponed explanation. It could not be levity
or fickleness of character which induced his daughter to act with so
much apparent inconsistency towards the man of his choice, and whom she
had so lately unequivocally owned to be also the man of her own. What
external force there could exist, of a kind powerful enough to change
the resolutions she had so decidedly expressed within twenty-four hours,
was a matter of complete mystery.

"But I will be as obstinate as she can be," thought the glover, "and she
shall either marry Henry Smith without farther delay or old Simon Glover
will know an excellent reason to the contrary."

The subject was not renewed during the evening; but early on the next
morning, just at sun rising, Catharine knelt before the bed in which her
parent still slumbered. Her heart sobbed as if it would burst, and her
tears fell thick upon her father's face. The good old man awoke, looked
up, crossed his child's forehead, and kissed her affectionately.

"I understand thee, Kate," he said; "thou art come to confession, and, I
trust, art desirous to escape a heavy penance by being sincere."

Catharine was silent for an instant.

"I need not ask, my father, if you remember the Carthusian monk,
Clement, and his preachings and lessons; at which indeed you assisted so
often, that you cannot be ignorant men called you one of his converts,
and with greater justice termed me so likewise?"

"I am aware of both," said the old man, raising himself on his elbow;
"but I defy foul fame to show that I ever owned him in any heretical
proposition, though I loved to hear him talk of the corruptions of the
church, the misgovernment of the nobles, and the wild ignorance of
the poor, proving, as it seemed to me, that the sole virtue of our
commonweal, i