Chapter Two Summary

Back in London, in the Fones' apothecary, Elizabeth, and her father's apprentice discuss the celebration of Christmas, and how King Charles celebrates it because his wife is a Papist. Bess's family does not celebrate Christmas because they are dissenters from the Episcopalian faith of the King. The king has taken to foisting old Roman religion on the Church of England.

Bess is learning the apothecary business, grinding and mixing a mithridate [cure-all] for a local countess. Being a bold young woman, Bess asks the Countess to pay for her medicines. The countess calls her family Puritans, and leaves, withdrawing her business from the Fones's Apothecary.

Bess's mother has passed on and her father is ailing. Her stepmother Priscilla remarks that Bess's cousin Harry is a wild young man who has sent them inferior tobacco from his plantation on Barbados, which was...