ting
of snowballs at their chamber window. At the last come the casement
undone, and _Aubrey's_ voice saith--

"Is there any in trouble?"

"Here is a poor maid, by name _Joyce Morrell_," said I, "that will be in
trouble ere long if thou leave her out in this snowstorm."

Good lack, but was there no ado when my voice were known! The hall fire
embers were stirren up, and fresh logs cast thereon, and in ten minutes
was I sat afore it of a great chair, with all the blankets in
_Cumberland_ around and over me, and a steaming hot posset-bowl of mine
hand.

It was a mile or so too far, I reckon, for Father _Slatter_ to trudge
after me, and if he had come, I'd have serven him of the poker, or twain
if need be. I guess he should have loved rather to flounder back
through the snow.

So, by the good hand of my God upon me, came I safe through the reign of
Queen _Mary_; and when Queen _Elizabeth_ came in (whom God long
preserve, unto the comfort of His Church and the welfare of _England_!)
had I not much ado to win back my lands and goods. Truth to tell, I gat
not all back, but what I lost was a cheap bargain where life lay in the
other scale. And enough is as good as a feast, any day.

So here lie I now at anchor, becalmed on the high seas. (If that emblem
hang not together, _Ned_ must amend it when he cometh unto it.) The day
is neither bright nor dark, but it is a day known to the Lord, and I
have faith to believe that at eventide it shall be light. I can trust
and wait.

(_In Edith's handwriting_.)

MINSTER LOVEL MANOR HOUSE, AUGUST THE XXVIII, MDXCI [1591].
When I come, this morrow, to search for my Diurnal Book, the which for
aught I knew I had brought with me from home, what should I find but our
old Chronicle, which I must have catched up in mistake for the same?
And looking therein, I was enticed to read divers pages, and then I fell
a-thinking that as it had so happed, it might be well, seeing a space
was yet left, that I should set down for the childre, whose it shall
some day be, what had come to pass since. They were the pages Aunt
_Joyce_ writ that I read: and seeing that of them therein named, two
have reached Home already, and the rest of us be eleven years further on
the journey, it shall doubtless make the story more completer to add
these lines.

_Father_, and _Mother_, and Aunt _Joyce_, be all yet alive; the Lord be
heartily thanked therefor! But _Father's_ hair is now of the h