smooth and sweet, and we should have lived happy ever after."

Oh, but what pitifulness was there in Aunt _Joyce's_ smile!

"Should you?" saith she, in a tone which seemed to me like the biggest
nay ever printed in a book. "Poor innocent child! A _Popish_ priest
cannot lawfully wed any, and evening is out of the canonical hours.
Wist thou not that such marriage should ne'er have held good in law?"

"It might have been good in God's sight, trow," saith she, something
perversely.

"Nay!" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "When men go to, of set purpose, to break
the laws of their country,--without it be in obedience to His plain
command,--I see not how the Lord shall hold them guiltless. So he
promised to bring thee home to ask pardon, did he? Poor, trusting,
deluded child! Thou shouldst never have come home, _Milly_--unless it
had been a year or twain hence, a forlorn, heart-broken, wretched thing.
Well, we could have forgiven thee and comforted thee then--as we will
now."

I am right weary a-writing, and will stay mine hand till I set down
_Aunt's_ story to-morrow.

SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER YE SECOND.
I marvel when I can make an end of writing, or when matters shall have
done happening. For early this morrow, ere breakfast were well over,
come a quick rap of the door, which _Caitlin_ opened, and in come _Alice
Lewthwaite_. Not a bit like herself looked she, with a scarf but just
cast o'er her head, and all out of breath, as though she had come forth
all suddenly, and had run fast and far. We had made most of us an end
of eating, but were yet sat at the table.

"_Alice_, dear heart, what aileth thee?" saith _Mother_, and rose up.

"Lady _Lettice_, do pray you tell me," panteth she, "if you have seen or
heard aught of our _Blanche_?"

"Nay, _Alice_, in no wise," saith _Mother_.

"Lack the day!" quoth she, "then our fears be true."

"What fears, dear heart?" I think _Father_, and _Mother_, and Aunt
_Joyce_, asked at her all together.

"I would as lief say nought, saving to my Lady, and Mistress _Joyce_,"
she saith: so they bare her away, and what happed at that time I cannot
say, saving that _Father_ himself took _Alice_ home, and did seem
greatly concerned at her trouble. Well, this was scantly o'er ere a
messenger come with a letter to _Mother_, whereon she had no sooner cast
her eyes than she brake forth with a cry of pleasure. Then, _Father_
desiring to know what it wer