'And, doing this!' added De Freston, 'you will lay us all under obligation. Come, Thomas, your prospects brighten! I think, with all these promises in hand, we cannot fail in obtaining our suit.' 'Then let us no longer delay. Ellen, as the oldest friend of Dame Joan's, I shall offer thee my hand. We will walk to St. Nicholas. I have but to leave a message for Master Cady, upon the subject of the market, and it is not out of our way. So let us be moving; we shall be back in time for our evening meal.' The party were soon ready, and Daundy and Ellen led the way. CHAPTER VIII. THE EVENT. Strange things occur when we least expect them, and often either further or retard the progress of our views so unaccountably, that with all our wisdom we could never effect what is often done by accident. We call it accident, or chance, but, call it what we may, there are designs fulfilled by man of which he has no kind of presentiment; and only after performance are they looked upon as providential. The party, as merry as friends intent upon doing mutual good could be, bent their way round by the market-place, where the butchers' shambles, a square-built, ancient building, then reared its four sides. It has been misrepresented that one of these stalls was kept by Robert Wolsey, the father of our young scholar; but all the stalls belonged to hire, which he had received as the security of his wife's dower from the wealthy family of Daundy. The whole of the butcher's shambles, which they were then approaching, were rented by the different occupiers of Robert Wolsey and just in the same manner as any of the great property in Grosvenor Street might belong, upon leases, to the Earl of that name; or the property in Lambeth, held by lease from the Archbishops of Canterbury, might be said to be the property of that See.