"Words be cast away on thee, Jack: I will hold my peace. When thy brains be come home from the journey they be now gone, thou canst give me to wit, an' it like thee." "I marvel," murmured Sir Thomas absently, "what Master Tremayne should say to all this." "He!" returned Jack with sovereign scorn. "He is a Puritan!" "He is a good man, Jack. And I doubt--so he keep out of ill company-- whether Arthur shall give him the like care," said his father sighing. "Arthur! A sely milksop, Sir, that cannot look a goose in the face!" "Good lack! how shall he ever win through this world, that is choke-full of geese?" asked Rachel cuttingly. "Suffer me to say, Sir, that Puritans be of no account in the Court." "Of earth, or Heaven?" dryly inquired Sir Thomas. "The Court of England, I mean, Sir. They be universally derided and held of low esteem. All these Sectaries--Puritans, Gospellers, Anabaptists, and what not--no gentleman would be seen in their company." "Dear heart!" growled the still acetic Rachel. "The angels must be mighty busy a-building chambers for the gentry, that they mix not in Heaven with the poor common saints." "'Tis the general thought, Aunt, among men of account.--and doth commend itself for truth,--that 't will take more ill-doing to damn a gentleman than a common man." [Note 2.] "Good lack! I had thought it should be the other way about," said Rachel satirically. "No doubt," echoed Lady Enville--in approbation of Jack's sentiment, not Rachel's. "Why, Aunt!--think you no account is taken of birth and blood in Heaven?" "Nay, I'll e'en let it be," said Rachel, rising and opening the door. "Only look thou, Jack,--there is another place than Heaven; and I don't reckon there be separate chambers there. Do but think what it were, if it _should_ chance to a gentleman to be shut up yonder along with the poor sinners of the peasantry!" And leaving this Parthian dart, Rachel went her way. "I will talk with thee again, Jack: in the mean while, I will, keep these," said his father, taking up the bills. "As it like you, Sir," responded Jack airily. "I care not though I never see them again." "What ado is here!" said Lady Enville, as her husband departed. "I am sore afeared thou wilt have some trouble hereabout, Jack. Both thy father and aunt be of such ancient notions." Jack bent low, with a courtier's grace, to kiss his step-mother's hand. "Trouble, Madam," he said--and spoke truly--"trouble bideth no longer on me than water on a duck's back." "And now tell me, Tremayne, what shall I do with this lad?" "I am afeared, Sir Thomas, you shall find it hard matter to deal with him." "Good lack, these lads and lasses!" groaned poor Sir Thomas. "They do wear a man's purse--ay, and his heart. Marry, but I do trust I gave no such thought and sorrow to my father! Yet in very deed my care for the future passeth it for the past. If Jack go on thus, what shall the end be?" Mr Tremayne shook his head.