morning, when the young Birkenholts awoke, the whole air
seemed full of bells from hundreds of Church and Minster steeples. The
Dragon Court wore a holiday air, and there was no ring of hammers at the
forges; but the men who stood about were in holiday attire: and the
brothers assumed their best clothes.

Breakfast was not a meal much accounted of. It was reckoned effeminate
to require more than two meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's
lodge at home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking horns
beside it in the hall, and on a small round table in the window a loaf
of bread, to which city luxury added a cheese, and a jug containing
sack, with some silver cups beside it, and a pitcher of fair water.
Master Headley, with his mother and daughter, was taking a morsel of
these refections, standing, and in out-door garments, when the brothers
appeared at about seven o'clock in the morning.

"Ha! that's well," quoth he, greeting them. "No slugabeds, I see. Will
ye come with us to hear mass at Saint Faith's?" They agreed, and Master
Headley then told them that if they would tarry till the next day in
searching out their uncle, they could have the company of Tibble
Steelman, who had to see one of the captains of the guard about an
alteration of his corslet, and thus would have every opportunity of
facilitating their inquiries for their uncle.

The mass was an ornate one, though not more so than they were accustomed
to at Beaulieu. Ambrose had his book of devotions, supplied by the good
monks who had brought him up, and old Mrs Headley carried something of
the same kind; but these did not necessarily follow the ritual, and
neither quiet nor attention was regarded as requisite in "hearing mass."
Dennet, unchecked, was exchanging flowers from her Sunday posy with
another little girl, and with hooded fingers carrying on in all
innocence the satirical pantomime of Father Francis and Sister
Catharine; and even Master Headley himself exchanged remarks with his
friends, and returned greetings from burgesses and their wives while the
celebrant priest's voice droned on, and the choir responded--the peals
of the organ in the Minster above coming in at inappropriate moments,
for there they were in a different part of High Mass using the Liturgy
peculiar to Saint Paul's.

Thinking of last week at Beaulieu, Ambrose knelt meantime with his head
buried in his hands, in an absorption of feeling that was not perhaps
who