brewer."

Ambrose could trust his brother under the care of Edmund Burgess, and
resolved on a double amount of repetitions of the appointed
intercessions for the departed.

He was watching the party of youths set off, all except Giles Headley,
who sulkily refused the invitations, betook himself to a window and sat
drumming on the glass, while Ambrose stood leaning on the dragon
balustrade, with his eyes dreamily following the merry lads out at the
gateway.

"You are not for such gear, sir," said a voice at his ear, and he saw
the scathed face of Tibble Steelman beside him.

"Never greatly so, Tibble," answered Ambrose. "And _my_ heart is too
heavy for it now."

"Ay, ay, sir. So I thought when I saw you in Saint Faith's. I have
known what it was to lose a good father in my time."

Ambrose held out his hand. It was the first really sympathetic word he
had heard since he had left Nurse Joan.

"'Tis the week's mind of his burial," he said, half choked with tears.
"Where shall I find a quiet church where I may say his _de profundis_ in
peace?"

"Mayhap," returned Tibble, "the chapel in the Pardon churchyard would
serve your turn. 'Tis not greatly resorted to when mass time is over,
when there's no funeral in hand, and I oft go there to read my book in
quiet on a Sunday afternoon. And then, if 'tis your will, I will take
you to what to my mind is the best healing for a sore heart."

"Nurse Joan was wont to say the best for that was a sight of the true
Cross, as she once beheld it at Holy Rood church at Southampton," said
Ambrose.

"And so it is, lad, so it is," said Tibble, with a strange light on his
distorted features.

So they went forth together, while Giles again hugged himself in his
doleful conceit, marvelling how a youth of birth and nurture could walk
the streets on a Sunday with a scarecrow such as that!

The hour was still early, there was a whole summer afternoon before
them; and Tibble, seeing how much his young companion was struck with
the grand vista of church towers and spires, gave him their names as
they stood, though coupling them with short dry comments on the way in
which their priests too often perverted them.

The Cheap was then still in great part an open space, where boys were
playing, and a tumbler was attracting many spectators; while the ballad-
singer of yesterday had again a large audience, who laughed loudly at
every coarse jest broken upon mass-priests and friars.

Am