No sooner did Mr. Talbot mention the name Cicely than Master Heatherthwayte looked up and said—­“Methinks it was I who spake that name over this young lady in baptism.”

“Even so,” said Richard.  “She knoweth all, but she hath ever been our good and dutiful daughter, for which we are the more thankful that Heaven hath given us none other maid child.”

He knew Master Heatherthwayte was inclined to curiosity about other people’s affairs, and therefore turned the discourse on the doings of his sons, hoping to keep him thus employed and avert all further conversation upon Cicely and the cause of the journey.  The good man was most interested in Edward, only he exhorted Mr. Talbot to be careful with whom he bestowed the stripling at Cambridge, so that he might shed the pure light of the Gospel, undimmed by Popish obscurities and idolatries.

He began on his objections to the cross in baptism and the ring in marriage, and dilated on them to his own satisfaction over the tankard of ale that was placed for him and his guest, and the apples and nuts wherewith Cicely was surreptitiously feeding Oil-of-Gladness and Dust-and-Ashes; while the old woman bustled about, and at length made her voice heard in the announcement that the chamber was ready, and the young lady was weary with travel, and it was time she was abed, and Oil likewise.

Though not very young children, Oil and Dust, at a sign from their father, knelt by his chair, and uttered their evening prayers aloud, after which he blessed and dismissed them—­the boy to a shake-down in his own room, the girl to the ecstasy of assisting the guest to undress, and admiring the wonders of the very simple toilette apparatus contained in her little cloak bag.

Richard meantime was responding as best he could to the inquiries he knew would be inevitable as soon as he fell in with the Reverend Master Heatherthwayte.  He was going to London in the Mastiff on some business connected with the Queen of Scots, he said.

Whereupon Mr. Heatherthwayte quoted something from the Psalms about the wicked being taken in their own pits, and devoutly hoped she would not escape this time.  His uncharitableness might be excused by the fact that he viewed it as an immediate possibility that the Prince of Parma might any day enter the Humber, when he would assuredly be burnt alive, and Oil-of-Gladness exposed to the fate of the children of Haarlem.

Then he added, “I grieved to hear that you and your household were so much exposed to the witchcrafts of that same woman, sir.”

“I hope she hath done them little hurt,” said Richard.”

“Is it true,” he added, “that the woman hath laid claim to the young lady now here as a kinswoman?”

“It is true,” said Richard, “but how hath it come to your knowledge, my good friend?  I deemed it known to none out of our house; not even the Earl and Countess guess that she is no child of ours.”