but if the matter is left to my own choice, I
stay with you, and your lot shall be mine."

"But if our lot be hardship and persecution, my Ermine--cold and hunger,
nakedness, and peril and sword! This might be a somewhat dull and
dreary life for thee, but were it not a safe one?"

"Had the Master a safe and easy life, Brother, that His servants should
seek it? Is the world so safe, and the way to Paradise so hard? Is it
not written, `Blessed are ye, when they shall persecute you'? Methinks
I see arising, even now, that little cloud which shall ere long cover
all the sky with darkness. Shall I choose my place with the `fearful'
that are left without the Holy City, rather than with them that shall
follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth?"

"It is written again, `When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into
another,'" replied Gerhardt.

"`_When_ they persecute you,'" repeated Ermine. "It has not come yet."

"It may be too late, when it has come."

"Then the way will be plain before me."

"Well, dear, I will urge you no further," said Gerhardt at last, drawing
a heavy sigh. "I had hoped that for thee at least--The will of the Lord
be done."

"If it were His will to preserve my life, even the persecutors
themselves might be made the occasion of doing so."

"True, my Ermine. It may be thou hast more faith than I. Be it as thou
wilt."

So Derette had to seek another maid.

"I'm sure I don't know who you'll get," said Isel. "There's Franna's
Hawise, but she's a bit of a temper,"--which her hearers knew to be a
very mild representation of facts: "and there's Turguia's
grand-daughter, Canda, but you'll have to throw a bucket of water over
her of a morrow, or she'll never be out of bed before sunrise on the
shortest day of the year. Then there's Henry's niece, Joan--" then
pronounced as a dissyllable, Joan--"but I wouldn't have such a sloven
about me. I never see her but her shoes are down at heel, and if her
gown isn't rent for a couple of hand-breadths, it's as much as you can
look for. Deary me, these girls! they're a sorry lot, the whole heap of
'em! _I_ don't know where you're going to find one, Derette."

"Put it in the Lord's hands, and He will find you one."

"I'll tell you what, Gerard, I never heard the like of you," answered
Isel, setting her pan swinging by its chain on the hook over the fire.
"You begin and end every mortal thing with our Lord, and you're saying
your prayers pretty n