offer for the girl than Raven Soclin. He can spend sixty pound
by the year and more; owns eight shops in the Bayly, and a brew-house
beside Saint Peter's at East Gate. He's no mother to plague his wife,
and he's a good even-tempered lad, as wouldn't have many words with her.
Deary me! but it's like throwing the fish back into the sea when
they've come in your net! What on earth are you waiting for, I should
just like to know?"

"Dear Mother Isel," answered Ermine softly, "we are waiting to see what
God would have of me. I think He means me for something else. Let us
wait and see."

"But there is nothing else, child," returned Isel almost irritably,
"without you've a mind to be a nun; and that's what I wouldn't be, take
my word for it. Is that what you're after?"

"No, I think not," said Ermine in the same tone.

"Then there's nothing else for you--nothing in this world!"

"This is not the only world," was the quiet reply.

"It's the only one I know aught about," said Isel, throwing her beans
into the pan; "or you either, if I'm not mistaken. You'd best be wise
in time, or you'll go through the wood and take the crookedest stick you
can find."

"I hope to be wise in time, Mother Isel; but I would rather it were
God's time than mine. And we Germans, you know, believe in
presentiments. Methinks He has whispered to me that the way He has
appointed for my treading is another road than that."

Ermine was standing, as she spoke, by the half-door, her eyes fixed on
the fleecy clouds which were floating across the blue summer sky.

"Can you see it, Aunt Ermine?" cried little Rudolph, running to her.
"Is it up there, in the blue--the road you are going to tread?"

"It is down below first," answered Ermine dreamily. "Down very low, in
the dim valleys, and it is rough. But it will rise by-and-bye to the
everlasting hills, and to the sapphire blue; and it leads straight to
God's holy hill, and to His tabernacle."

They remembered those words--seven months later.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The Pipe Rolls speak of _large_ cheeses, which cost from
threepence to sixpence each, and the ordinary size, of which two or
three were sold for a penny. They were probably very small.

Note 2. Modern value of above prices:--Pig, 1 pound, 19 shillings 7
pence; half ox, 1 pound, 15 shillings 5 pence; cloth, 1 pound 16
shillings 5 and a half pence per ell; cloak, 13