ng at me," said I, with a smile.

"My laugh will never hurt you," answered she. "But truly, betwixt
Sister Ada and the peacock--They both spread their plumes to be looked
at. I wonder which Father Mortimer will admire most."

"You surely never mean," said I, much shocked, "that Sister Ada expects
Father Mortimer to admire her!"

"Oh, she means nothing ill," said Sister Gaillarde. "She only admires
Ada Mansell so thoroughly herself, that she cannot conceive it possible
that any one can do otherwise. Let her spread her feathers--it won't
hurt. Any way, it will not hurt him. He isn't that sort of animal."

Indeed, I hope he is not.

When my Lady dismissed us, I went to my work in the illumination-room,
where Joan, with Sister Annot and Sister Josia, awaited my coming. I
bade Sister Josia finish the Holy Family she was painting yesterday for
a missal which we are preparing for my Lord's Grace of York; I told
Sister Annot to lay the gold leaf on the Book of Hours writing for my
Lady of Suffolk; and as Margaret, who commonly works with her, was not
yet come, I began myself to show Joan how to coil up the tail of a
griffin--she said, to put a yard of tail into an inch of parchment. It
appeared to amuse her very much to see how I twisted and interlaced the
tracery, so as to fill up every little corner of the parallelogram.
When the outline was drawn, and she began to fill it with cobalt, as I
sat by, she said suddenly yet softly--

"Mother Annora, I have been considering whether I should tell you
something."

"Tell me what, dear child?" quoth I.

"I am afraid," said she, "I shocked you yesterday, making you think I
was scarcely sound in the faith. Yet where can lie the verity of the
faith, if not in Holy Writ? And I marvelled if it should aggrieve you
less, if you knew one thing--yet that might give you pain."

"Let me hear it, Joan."

"Did you know," said she, dropping her voice low, "that it was in part
for heresy that your own father suffered death?"

"My father!" cried I. "Joan, I know nothing of my father, save only
that he angered Queen Isabel, and for what cause wis I not."

"For two causes: first, because the King her husband loved him, and she
was of that fashion that looked on all love borne by him as so much
robbed from herself. But the other was that very thing--that she was
orthodox, and he was--what the priests called an heretic. There might
be other causes: some men say he was proud, an