r.

"Your Majesty hath power to do what you please," he said, "and your
city of London will obey accordingly; but she humbly desires that
when your Majesty shall remove your Courts, you would graciously
please to leave the Thames behind you."

But to return to the house on the bridge and the occupants of
Martin Holt's parlour. Whilst Jemima and Keziah listened eagerly to
the stories of the student's son, with the delight natural to
Puritan maidens denied any participation in such scenes of
merriment, Jacob was looking rather dismally round the room, and
presently broke in with the question:

"But where, all this time, is Cherry?"

"Strewing rushes in the eating parlour, I doubt not," answered
Keziah. "She went out a while back to cut them. She loveth not dry
disputings and learned talk. Belike she will linger below till nigh
on the supper hour an Aunt Susan call her not."

"I love not such disputings neither," said Jacob, with unwonted
energy. "Good Kezzie, let us twain slip below to help Cherry over
her task."

Keziah gave a quick glance at the face of her stern aunt, who loved
not this sort of slipping away during times of ceremony; but she
had her back to them and to the door, and was engrossed in the talk
as well as in the stocking fabric upon her needles. Jemima and
Walter were still talking unrebuked in a low key. Perchance this
flitting could be accomplished without drawing down either notice
or remark. To please Jacob, Keziah would have done much, even to
running the risk of a scolding from her aunt. She had none of saucy
Cherry's scorn of the big boorish fellow with the red face and
hairy hands. She looked below the surface, and knew that a kindly
heart beat beneath the ungainly habit; and being but plain herself,
Keziah would have taken shame to herself for thinking scorn of
another for a like defect.

Putting her finger on her lip in token of caution, she effected a
quiet retreat, and the next moment the two cousins stood flushed
but elated in the eating parlour below. But though it was now past
five o'clock, there was no sign of Cherry or her rushes, and Keziah
looked both surprised and uneasy.

"Belike she came in with dirty clogs and skirt, and has gone up to
her bed chamber to change them, for fear of Aunt Susan telling her
she was cluttering up the parlour," said the sister, anxiously. "I
will run and see. Sure she can never have lingered so late beside
the river! The sun has been long down,