must follow his own bent, and I say not that he has not done much good by his learning. I have but thought at times, that had he been less studious and hermit-like, Master Jones might perchance have found in him a more active enemy, and so we might have been spared some few of the long Puritan faces in our midst! They mean well, I doubt not, but I trust them not, and methinks they would verily as fain burn many of us as our prayer-books!" "That is ever your grievance against Master Jones!" laughed Primrose. "He is truly bitter against the book, yet I think he would come short of burning you and me! I am glad my mother did not give me to the care of a Puritan, dad, for I like them not myself. Surely this bright world that God has made cannot be such a sorry place as they would have us believe? It was but yesterday, dad, that I met good Master Jones by the riverside. The birds were singing and the sun shone, and I could but sing too for joy because the world seemed so beautiful, but he looked upon me with a sour countenance, and said:--(Why do they all speak thus through the nose?)--'Prithee, maiden, stay thy singing, and give thy mind to graver matters. Thou dost nought but sing like the chattering birds the whole of the live-long day! Beware lest evil fall upon thee and quickly change thy tune, for methinks thy voice is but a snare of the Evil One!'" Jack laughed. "And what answer made you, Primrose?" he asked. "'An I were to come and sing for you in your quire at the chapel, good Master Jones,' I said, 'you would never say my voice was the gift of the Evil One. Did you not say but last Sunday to Mistress Evans, that could you but turn the boatman's daughter from her heresy, her singing would draw all the country-side to your chapel? Surely that was a vain speech, and likely to turn the head of such a silly maiden as I. Nevertheless I will rather sing here to the birds, who love their church and their king better than you do!' With that he grew red, and said angrily: 'It is but little longer you will have a church or a king to boast of, foolish girl. Yon building on the hillside, with all its idolatrous ornaments and vain pomps, will lie low in the dust ere many more years have rolled over your golden head!' 'Methinks, good Master Jones,' I said, 'that if God had so loved to see things, He would surely have made a whitewashed world like the inside of your chapel, instead of all these beautiful colours of earth and sky which we see around us!' and at that he grew redder than before, and turned on his heel and left me to my folly. Think you I shall one day find it to be but a sorry world, dad? Is it only because I am as yet so young, that I find it so beautiful and full of joy?" "God's shadows fall but where He lets them, sweetheart," answered the boatman reverently, "and should they chance to fall sometime on you, remember there could be no shadows but for the sun; and look therefore the