'My dear young lady I helped myself to the Saxon language as to most other things. If I trusted to other help I should be worse off than I am. When first it dawned on me that the friend and confessor of Canynge had wrote all these poems for the edifying of his patron, I toiled night and day till I was able to interpret them for this perverse generation. But I had my friends. Mr Catcott is one, Mr Barrett, a surgeon, another, and now let me count as a friend one fairer than they, your sweet self.' 'As we live under the same roof, we may well be friends, but if, as you say, you are yet but sixteen years old, you are so much younger than I am.' 'Nay, older by a score of years,' Chatterton interrupted. 'For age is not counted by years, but by the strife and the struggle and the misery through which the soul passes. In this I am your senior.' 'Nay,' Bryda said gently, 'we cannot enter into each other's secret heart. We all know our own troubles. I have mine, and I am now parted from a sister I love, and I am, after a week's absence, hungering for her tender care.' And now Bryda became conscious that they were observed by a party of girls who were returning through the meadows from a Sunday ramble with their lovers. Several of the girls nodded and laughed at Chatterton. One stopped and said,-- 'A new flame, Tom? Oh, fie for shame! Do you know, miss, whoever you may be, that Master Tom is a terrible one to shoot from Cupid's bow. He seldom misses his aim.' 'Come on,' said a gruff voice, 'and don't talk such foolery, Sally. Leave the boy to look after his own business.' 'Or rather the girl after hers,' was the saucy reply, as the pair moved away. Jack Henderson began to think that Miss Chatterton purposely avoided joining company with her brother and Bryda. He now said,-- 'Miss Palmer has a long walk to Dowry Square. I think, by your leave, I will join her, and advise her to take advantage of Mrs Chatterton's offer to rest a while at her house.' 'Certainly, sir, if you desire it; but my brother would fain take her into the church, I fancy, before it is closed.' Chatterton at once became moody and distrait when his _tête-à-tête_ with Bryda was at an end. He had been annoyed, too, by the remarks of the free-spoken young lady, who had rallied him on his 'new conquest,' and when they entered the church the evil spirit was again dominant. But Bryda forgot him, forgot Rowley the priest, and the wonderful story of his poems, in the feeling of awe with which the noble church inspired her.