"Will you go further, an' it like you?" "How, Master Tremayne?" "`This is My body, which is broken for you.' Was the bread that He held in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of that body,--and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me." "It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt," she said slowly. "Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must be the other." "That may be, perchance," said Blanche, sheering off from the subject, as she found it passing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort of thought: "but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little." "Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche." "It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this matter, the Papists do more meetly than you." "`More meetly'--wherewith, Mistress Blanche? With the truth of Holy Scripture, or with the fantasies of human nature?" "I would say," repeated Blanche rather warmly, "that her honour must be very dear to her blessed Son." "There is one honour ten thousand-fold dearer unto His heart, my maid, and that is the honour of God His eternal Father. All honour, that toucheth not this, I am ready to pay to her. But tell me wherefore you think she must be His dearest?" "Because it must needs be thus," replied illogical Blanche. "I would ask you to remember, Mistress Blanche, that He hath told us the clean contrary." Blanche looked up with an astonished expression. "`Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' Equally honourable, equally dear, with that mother of His flesh whom you would fain upraise above all other women. And I am likewise disposed to think that word of Paul,--`Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more'--I say, I am disposed to think this may have his reverse side. Though He hath known us after the flesh, yet thus, now that He is exalted to the right hand of God, He knoweth us no more. And if so, then Mary is now unto Him but one of a multitude of saved souls, all equally fair and dear and precious in the eyes of Him that died for them." "O Master Tremayne!" "What would you say, Mistress Blanche?" "That is truly--it sounds so cold!" said Blanche, disparagingly.