“Firste, he gives me y^{e} marmot. Then, the marmot dies. Then, I, having kept y^{e} creature soe long, and being naturalie tender, must cry a little over it. Then Will must come in and find me drying mine eyes. Then he must, most unreasonablie, suppose that I c^{d} not have loved the poor animal for its own sake soe much as for his; and thereupon, falle a love-making in such down righte earneste, that I, being alreadie somewhat upset, and knowing ’twoulde please father . . . . and hating to be perverse . . . . and thinking much better of Will since he hath studied soe hard, and given soe largelie to y^{e} poor, and left off broaching his heteroclite opinions. . . . I say, I supposed it must be soe, some time or another, soe ’twas noe use hanging back for ever and ever, soe now there’s an end, and I pray God give us a quiet life. “Noe one w^{d} suppose me reckoning on a quiet life if they knew how I’ve cried alle this forenoon, ever since I got quit of Will, by father’s carrying him off to Westminster. He’ll tell father, I know, as they goe along in the barge, or else coming back, which will be soon enow, though I’ve ta’en no heed of the hour. I wish ’twere cold weather, and that I had a sore throat or stiff neck, or somewhat that might reasonablie send me a-bed, and keep me there till to-morrow morning. But I’m quite well, and ’tis the dog-days, and cook is thumping the rolling-pin on the dresser, and dinner is being served, and here comes father.” * * * * * But with this extract the happy days of the household are ended; doubts, darkness, dangers and the shadows of the valley of death henceforth begin to close around and above them; and if, as the old Greeks and Romans deemed, a good man struggling nobly in the toils of necessity were a spectacle for the eyes of gods, then were the sufferings of Sir Thomas and his household of the grandest and most glorious. Now, he has thwarted the uxorious, cruel tyrant, offended unto death the ambitious Anne Boleyn, and brought his head into jeopardy by denying the supremacy of a layman in affairs ecclesiastical. And lo! how gently, and with how exquisite a harmony of circumstances, he breaks to his favorite child his own distinct anticipation of his coming doom. “Ever since father’s speech to us in y^{e} pavillion, we have been of one heart and one soul; neither have any of us said that aught of the things we possessed were our own, but we have had all things in common. And we have eaten our meat with gladness and singleness of heart. “This afternoon, expressing to father my gratefull sense of our present happiness. . . . . ‘Yes, Meg,’ returns he, ‘I too am deeply thankful for this breathing space.’ “‘Do you look on it as no more, then?’ I sayd.