saith the witness. `Ay, but will you swear?' saith he.
`Why,' quoth the witness, `how can I swear when I wis not?' `Nay, but
you must swear one way or an other,' saith he. Under thy leave,
_Joyce_, I do decline to swear either way, seeing I wis not."

Aunt _Joyce_ gives a little stamp of her foot. "What on earth is the
good of men, when they wit no more than women?" quoth she: whereat all
laughed.

"Ah, some women have great wits," saith _Father_.

"Give o'er thy mocking, _Aubrey_!" answers she. "Tell us plain, what
notion thou hast, and be not so strict tied to chapter and verse."

"Of what worth shall then be my notions? Well," saith _Father_, "I have
given them on the one matter. As for the origin of evil, I find the
origin of mine evil in mine own heart, and no further can I get except
to _Satan_."

"Ay, but I would fain reach over _Satan_," saith she.

"That shall we not do without _Satan_ overreaching us," quoth _Father_.
"Well, then--as to free-will and grace, I find both. `Whosoever will,
take of the water of life,'--and `Yet will ye not come unto Me that ye
might have life.' But also I find, `No man can come to Me, except the
Father draw him;' and that faith cometh `Not of yourselves; it is the
gift of God.'"

"Come, tarry not there!" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "How dost thou reconcile
them?"

"Why, I don't reconcile them," quoth he.

"Ay, but do!" she makes answer.

"Well," saith he, "if thou wilt come and visit me, _Joyce_, an hundred
years hence, at the sign of the _Burnt-Sacrifice_, in _Amethyst_ Lane,
in the _New Jerusalem_, I will see if I can do it for thee then."

"_Aubrey Louvaine_!" saith Aunt _Joyce_, "thou art--"

"Not yet there," he answers. "I am fully aware of it."

"The wearifullest tease ever I saw, when it liketh thee!" saith she.

"Dost thou know, _Joyce_," quoth _Mother_, laughing merrily, "I found
out that afore I was wed. He did play right cruelly on mine eagerness
once or twice."

"Good lack! then why didst thou wed him?" saith Aunt _Joyce_.

_Mother_ laughed at this, and _Father_ made a merry answer, which turned
the discourse to other matter, and were not worth to set down. So we
gat not back to our sad talk, but all ended with mirth.

This morrow come o'er _Robin Lewthwaite_, with a couple of rare fowl and
his mother's loving commendations for _Mother_. He saith nothing is yet
at all heard of their _Blanche_, and he shook his head right sorrowfully
when I a