crutches, "I hope a few will go to
Heaven who do not go into the cloister. But we may rest assured of
this, that not one will go there who has not chosen Christ for his
portion."

"Well," said Diana, calmly, a minute after Heliet had disappeared, "I
suppose she means to be a nun! But she might let that alone till she is
one."

"Let what alone?" asked Roisia.

"Oh, all that parson's talk," returned Diana. "It is all very well for
priests and nuns, but secular people have nothing to do with it."

"I thought even secular people wanted to go to Heaven," coolly put in
Elaine, not because she cared a straw for the question, but because she
delighted in taking the opposite side to Diana.

"Let them go, then!" responded Diana, rather sharply. "They can keep it
to themselves, can't they?"

"Well, I don't know," said Elaine, laughing. "Some people cannot keep
things to themselves. Just look at Olympias, whatever she is doing, how
she argues the whole thing out in public. `Oh, shall I go or not? Yes,
I think I will; no, I won't, though; yes, but I will; oh, can't somebody
tell me what to do?'"

Elaine's mimicry was so perfect that Olympias herself joined in the
laugh. The last-named damsel carried on all her mental processes in
public, instead of presenting her neighbours, as most do, with results
only. And when people wear their hearts upon their sleeves, the daws
will come and peck at them.

"Now, don't tease Olympias," said Roisia good-naturedly.

"Oh, let one have a bit of fun," said Elaine, "when one lives in a
convent of the strictest order."

"I suspect thou wouldst find a difference if thou wert to enter one,"
sneered Diana.

Elaine would most likely have fought out the question had not Mistress
Underdone entered at that moment with a plate of gingerbread in her hand
smoking hot from the oven.

"Oh, Mistress, I am so hungry!" plaintively observed that young lady.

Mistress Underdone laughed, and set down the plate. "There, part the
spice-cake among you," said she. "And when you be through, I have
somewhat to tell you."

"Tell us now," said Elaine, as well as a mouthful of gingerbread allowed
her to speak.

"Let me see, now--what day is this?" inquired Mistress Underdone.

All the voices answered her at once, "Saint Dunstan's Eve!" [May 13th].

"So it is. Well--come Saint Botolph, [June 17th] as I have but now
learned, we go to Whitehall."

"_Ha, jolife_!" cried Diana, Elaine, and Rois