Of political events Agnes knew little, and thought less. She could barely have told who was on the throne, had she been asked. She had watched alike tumult and pageant without any intelligent notion of what was passing. Nor had she any idea that during those past days, when such things had no interest for her, the opportunity of using them had been passing away; and that in a very few weeks the public reading of the Bible would be perilous to those who had the courage to dare it. Imprisonment would soon await any layman who should dare to read to another the Word of Life. It often occurred that projects had to dwell in Agnes's mind for some time before she had an opportunity to put them into execution. That such should be the case with this one gave her no surprise. Generally speaking, after mass on Sunday, Joan and Dorothy donned their finest clothes, and went out on a merry-making expedition, while Mistress Winter, also in grand array, preferred to entertain her neighbours at home. She considered Agnes on these occasions as one too many, and usually contrived to send her on some errand to a distance; but now and then, when no errand was forthcoming, she had the Sunday afternoon to herself. Five Sundays passed after the project had taken shape in her mind, and no leisure had yet come to Agnes. The Saturday arrived, the eve of the sixth Sunday, and she was still in expectation of fulfilling her hopes in some happy future. The hope was communicated to Cicely Marvell, whom Agnes met in returning from the pump, with certainty of sympathy on her part. The full pails were only just set down on the kitchen floor, when in bustled Mistress Flint, with a dish-cloth in her hand, which she had not waited to lay down, so eager was she to utter what she came to say. "Go to, Gossip Winter! Heard you the news?" "News, gramercy! Who e'er hath the grace to tell me a shred thereof?" returned Mistress Winter crustily. "What now, Gossip?" "Forsooth, the King's Grace is departed." "Alack the day! Who saith it?" "Marry, my Lord Mayor himself hath proclaimed it at the Cross, and as Monday are my Lords of the Council to ride unto the Tower for to salute the new Queen." "The new Queen! Who is she, belike?" demanded Mistress Winter, who did not usually trouble her head with politics. She was standing by the fire with a frying-pan in her hand, arrested in her occupation by surprise and curiosity, as Mistress Flint had been in hers. "Why, what think you? Folk say that heard the same, that the King's Highness hath left the Crown by will to his cousin, my Lady Jane Dudley, and hath put by his own sisters; and she shall be proclaimed as to-morrow in Cheapside." "Dear heart alive!" cried Mistress Winter. "And what say my Ladies the King's sisters, that be thus left out in the cold?" "That is as it may be," replied Mistress Flint mysteriously. "My good man saith, if the Lady Mary suffer all tamely, then is she not the maid he took her to be."