"Lack-a-day! but I do verily hope siege shall be ne'er laid to London! It should go ill with us that dwell in the outskirts." "You say well, Gossip, in very deed. The blessed saints have a care of us! as metrusteth they shall." "Not they belike!" growled Mistress Winter, resuming her suspended proceedings with the frying-pan. "They shall be every one a-looking out for the Lady Jane." Mistress Flint came nearer, and replied in a mysterious whisper. "Scantly so, as methinks, Gossip, when she is of the new learning, if folk speak sooth touching her. The saints and angels shall trouble them rare little about her. Trust me, they shall go with the Lady Mary, every man of them." "Say you so?" demanded Mistress Winter. "Why, then shall the old learning come in again, an' she win." "Ay, I warrant you!" responded her neighbour. Mistress Winter fried her rashers with a meditative face. "Doll!" said she, when Mistress Flint and her dish-cloth had departed, "whither is become Saint Thomas of Canterbury?" "Go to! what wis I?" returned Dorothy. "He was cast with yon old lumber in the back attic, when King Edward's Grace come in. He hath been o' no count this great while." "Fetch him forth," said Mistress Winter; "and, Agnes, do thou cleanse him well. If my Lady Jane win, why, 'tis but that we love not to have no dirt in the house: but if my Lady Mary, then shall he go to the gilder, and I will set him of an high place, for to be seen. Haste thee about it." Half an hour later, Agnes (to whom Dorothy deputed the dusty search) came down from the attic, carrying a battered wooden doll on a stand, which had once been gaudily painted, but was now worn and soiled, deprived of an arm, and gashed in sundry places, having been used as a chopping-block for a short time during the palmy days of the Reformation. "He'll lack a new nose," remarked Mistress Winter, thoughtfully considering the poor ill-used article. "And an arm must he have, and be all fresh painted and gilt, belike. Dear heart! it shall be costly matter! Howbeit, we must keep up with the times, if we would swim and not sink." Keeping up with the times is a very costly business. It costs many men their fortunes, many their reputations, and some their souls. Yet men and women are always to be found who will pay the full price, rather than miss doing it.