"What is it, dear heart? What makes thee cry? Tell Aunt Joyce what ails thee, my dear, tender lamb, now do?" said my aunt, who was apt, in times of interest, to return to her native Devon. I remember, as though it were yesterday, how sweetly sounded in mine ears the homely accent, and the words of endearment which I suppose might find some echo in my childish remembrance. Sure 'tis a cruel thing to deprive young creatures of those caresses which even the dumb beasts bestow upon their young. I have always thought that if my lady had been more tender and gentle with poor Randall, he might have been different. "Only I can't stay here!" I sobbed at last. "Pretty soon Mother Benedict will send or come for me, and I shall have to go to the convent, to be shut up and never see any body, or run in the fields any more, and to wear a horrid gray robe, and a veil—" and here I broke down again. "My child, I think you are borrowing trouble!" said my aunt, with a perplexed look. "I thought you were coming to live with us. I heard nothing about any convent." "But I am to go to the convent!" I answered. "My lady said so." "Well, well, we will talk to my nephew about it!" said my aunt. "Don't cry any more, there's a lamb, but wash your face and come down stairs with me, and by and by we will go and take a walk in the fields and see the old people in the almshouses. Can you sew?" "Oh yes, aunt!" "Then you shall help me a little, if you will. I am making some napkins of old worn linen for one of the bedeswomen who has watering eyes, and you shall hem one for me. As for the convent, I would not trouble about that just now, at any rate. It will be time enough when you have to go there." Somewhat comforted, I washed away the traces of my tears with the rosewater my aunt gave me, and followed her down stairs to the parlor, where my cousins were already sitting, the one at her sampler, the other at her lute, which she played very prettily for a child. If my aunt was in a hurry for the napkins she gave me to hem, she did not act wisely in seating me at the window, for I saw so much to observe and admire that my work went on but slowly. But I suppose her object was rather to divert me from my grief, and in that she certainly succeeded. Now it was some gay nobleman of the court with two or three attendants, all glittering in gold and embroidery who passed by—now a showman with a tame jackanape or a dancing bear—then a priest under a gorgeous canopy, carrying the host in its splendid receptacle to some dying person. I can't pretend to recite all the wonderful things I saw. I could not help wondering where all the people found lodging, and how they found their way home at night. Now London is far more crowded than it was then, and it increases all the time, despite the laws made to check the growth of large towns. But I do not think it can ever be much larger than it is at present. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. MORE REMEMBRANCES.