Seeing ye woodman fell a noble tree, which, as it went to the ground, did uptear several small plants by ye roots, methoughte such woulde be the fall of dear father, herein more sad than that of the abbot of Sion and the Charterhouse monks, inasmuch as, being celibate, they involve noe others in theire ruin. Brave, holie martyrs! how cheerfully they went to theire death. I'm glad to have seene how pious men may turn e'en an ignominious sentence into a kind of euthanasy. Dear father bade me note how they bore themselves as bridegrooms going to theire marriage, and converted what mighte have beene a shock to my surcharged spiritts, into a lesson of deep and high comfort. One thing hath grieved me sorelie. He mistooke somewhat I sayd at parting for an implication of my wish that he shoulde yield up his conscience. Oh, no, dearest father, that be far from me! It seems to have cut him to the heart, for he hath writ that "none of the terrible things that may befall him touch him soe nearlie as that his dearly beloved child, whose opinion he soe much values, shoulde desire him to overrule his conscience." That be far from me, father! I have writ to explayn the matter, but his reproach, undeserved though it be, hath troubled my heart. November. Parliament will meet to-morrow. 'Tis expected father and ye good bishop of Rochester will be attainted for misprison of treason by ye slavish members thereof, and though not given hithertoe unto much heede of omens and bodements while our hearts were light and our courage high, yet now ye coming evil seemeth foreshadowed unto alle by I know not how many melancholick presages, sent, for aught we know, in mercy. Now that the days are dark and short, and the nights stormy, we shun to linger much after dusk in lone chambers and passages, and what was sayd of the enemies of Israel may be nigh sayd of us, "that a falling leaf shall chase them." I'm sure "a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees" on a blusterous evening, is enow to draw us alle, men, mothers, and maids, together in an heap.... We goe about ye house in twos and threes, and care not much to leave the fireside. Last Sunday we had closed about ye the hearth, and little Bill was a reading by the fire-light how Herodias' daughter danced off the head of St. John the Baptist, when down comes an emptie swallow's nest tumbling adown the chimnie, bringing with it enow of soot, smoke, and rubbish to half smother us alle; but the dust was nothing to the dismay thereby occasioned, and I noted one or two of our bravest turn as pale as death. Then, the rats have skirmished and galloped behind the wainscoat more like a troop of horse than a herd of such smaller deer, to ye infinite annoyance of mother, who coulde not be more firmly persuaded they were about to leave a falling house, if, like the sacred priests in the temple of Jerusalem, she had heard a voyce utter, "Let us depart hence." The round upper half