But first Master More has to be seen off, and kerchiefs and sashes have to be waved at him from the water-stairs, until his barge grows smaller and smaller, and finally the speck it has become has been caught into the distance. Then off go the girls, under the bustling and energetic directions of Dame Alice, to help in the dairy or kitchen, or attend to the wants of the poor, whose meals are as regular a part of the household machinery as those of the family themselves. In the meantime you go to the schoolroom with Master Gunnel and the boys—young John Clement, and Jack Dancey, and Will Roper, wards or protégés of Master More, and the son of the house, young John More. A word or two puts you in possession of the present position and future prospects of the lads. Young Clement has a marked taste for medicine, and is already a distinguished botanist. He has been taken into the household at the recommendation of Dean Colet, at whose School of St. Paul’s he has already distinguished himself, and while pursuing his own Greek and Latin studies under Master Gunnel, preparatory to entering Oxford, he acts as assistant tutor and directs the botanical researches of the others. Will Roper is a ward of Master More, and Jack Dancey is the son of a legal client, whom the good man has taken into his house until his affairs can be settled. Otherwise it were ill for young Dancey, of whose estates the lawyers alone draw the profits. To balance matters, Dancey, very wisely, proposes to became a lawyer himself. As for Jack More, you know a little of his abilities already—but it needs no Master Gunnel to tell you presently when you shall be alone with him—the boys being given a task to do, and sent into the garden with it—that in the matter of brains, poor Jack can never hope to compete with his sisters. You venture to remark that it is a pity, but you do not find Master Gunnel over ready to agree with you. “For my part,” he says, “I hold with Master More that the harvest will not be much affected whether it is a man or a woman who sows the field. In truth, it is a matter on which he hath done me the honour to put his views in writing, at some length—if you care to see his letter, I have it at hand.” Indeed, you care very much, and presently you are seated in a comfortable window seat, with the treasured letter spread out on your knees. To your shame, be it spoken, you read the Latin with less ease than Cecy or Jack would show; noting which, Master Gunnel unostentatiously begins to read in English some of the more important passages. “Listen to this,” he counsels you, pointing to a marked passage, and thereupon begins:—