to-day, let us settle the
question.

CHAPTER ONE.

GLAD TIDINGS.

"For when the heart of man shuts out,
Straightway the heart of God takes in."

_James Russell Lowell_.

"Good lack, Agnes! Why, Agnes Stone! Thou art right well be-called
Stone; for there is no more wit nor no more quickness in thee than in a
pebble. Lack-a-daisy! but this were never good land sithence preaching
came therein,--idle foolery that it is!--good for nought but to set folk
by the ears, and learn young maids for to gad about a-showing of their
fine raiment, and a-gossiping one with another, whilst all the work to
be wrought in the house falleth on their betters. Bodykins o' me! canst
not hear mass once i' th' week, and tell thy beads of the morrow with
one hand whilst thou feedest the chicks wi' th' other? and that shall be
religion enough for any unlettered baggage like to thee. Here have I
been this hour past a-toiling and a-moiling like a Barbary slave, while
thou, my goodly young damosel, wert a-junketing it out o' door; and for
why, forsooth? Marry, saith she, to hear a shaven crown preach at the
Cross! Good sooth, but when I tell lies, I tell liker ones than so!
And but now come home, by my troth; and all the pans o' th' fire might
ha' boiled o'er, whilst thou, for aught I know, wert a-dancing in
Finsbury Fields with a parcel of idle jades like thyself. Beshrew thee
for a lazy hilding [young person; a term applied to either sex] that
ne'er earneth her bread by the half! Now then, hold thy tongue,
Mistress, and get thee a-work, as a decent woman should. When I lack a
lick o' th' rough side thereof, I'll give thee due note!"

Thus far Mistress Martha Winter poured out the vials of her wrath,
standing with arms akimbo in the doorway, and addressing a slight,
pale-faced, trembling girl of twenty years, who stood before her with
bowed head, and made no attempt at self-defence. Indeed, she would have
been clever who could have slipped in a sentence, or even have edged in
a word, when Mistress Winter had pulled out of her wrath-bottle that
cork which was so seldom in it, as Agnes Stone knew to her cost. Nor
was it the girl's habit to excuse or defend herself. Mistress Winter's
deprecation of that proceeding was merely a flourish of rhetoric. So
Agnes, as usual, let the tempest blow over her, offering no attempt to
struggle, but only to stand and endure.

Mistress Winter had made an excellent investment when, six y