"Well, sure, 'tis sore to lose you, Mrs. Celia, my dear!" observed Cicely Aggett, as she sat sewing; "but more particular to a stranger--among them dreadful Papists--and such a way off, too! Why, 'tis nigh a hundred mile from here to Paris, ben't it?" "I don't know how far it is," said Celia, honestly; "but I am sure 'tis a very long way." "Well, anyhow, you'll not forget us, dear heart?" "I shall never do that, Cicely. But don't talk as if I were going away altogether. 'Tis only a visit. I shall soon come back--in a year, at the longest." "Maybe, my dear," answered Cicely, quietly; "and maybe not, Mrs. Celia. A year is a long time, and we none of us know what the Lord may have for us afore then. Not one of us a-going along with you! Well, you'll have Him with you, and He'll see to you a deal better than we could. But to think of you going among them wicked, cruel Papists! Don't have no more to do with none of them than you can help--don't, my dear! Depend upon it, Mrs. Celia, they ben't a bit better now than they was a hundred and fifty years ago, when they burned and tormented poor folks all over the country, as my grandmother used to tell me." "What did she tell you about it, Cicely?" "She were to Exeter,[1a] Mrs. Celia, and she lived till I was a matter of fifteen; and many a tale she's told me of their doings in them old times. But the one I always liked best was one her mother had told her. Her mother had been a young maid when the burnings was a-going on; she were to London,[1b] and was woman to a lady, one of them as was burnt." "Tell me about it, Cicely," requested Celia, with feelings of curiosity and horror struggling for precedence.