"Oh, yes, uncle!" I answered, remembering all at once the packet my lady had placed among my things, with a strict injunction to deliver it to Master Gabriel Corbet directly on my arrival. I ran up to my room, and finding the package safe and sound in my book of Hours, where it had been laid for safe keeping, I brought it down and put it into my uncle's hand. He cut the band of floss silk which confined it, and was soon engaged in its perusal. Seeing, I suppose, that I was watching his face, my aunt directed my attention to some pageant passing in the street. My eyes, however, soon stole back to my uncle's face, and I was startled to see the change and the look of grief which had come over it. Forgetting all decorum in my anxiety, I cried out: "Oh, uncle, must I go to the convent? I will be so good if you will only let me stay here." Katherine and Avice looked scared, and so was I when I bethought me of what I had done. My uncle, however, did not seem angry. On the contrary, he put out his hand and drew me toward him. "Listen to me, Loveday, and you also, my children, and learn what it costs to nourish a grudge," said he. "When we were both young, my brother and I quarreled. No matter about what. I thought myself wholly the injured party, and, despite all our good mother's efforts, I would not be reconciled. So my brother, who was the younger of us two, after vainly trying to bring me to a better mind, betook himself with his young wife to a little estate in the west country, which had been left him by a kinsman." "More than once did he send overtures for a reconciliation, but I—miserable sinner that I was—would not even read his letters. Meantime he, riding home from market, was set upon by robbers and miserably murdered. A brother of the kinsman who left him the estate started up with a claim which was made good, by the help of some great man his patron. My sister died from the effects of grief, and this poor child was thrown upon the world without a protector, and but for the kindness of my Lady Peckham, whose husband was her kinsman, she might have grown up a wretched, forlorn beggar." "I humbly thank my dearest Lord," and here he raised his cap, "who hath both granted me conviction of sin and His forgiveness for the same; but He, like earthly parents, sometimes leaves the offender to smart for his fault, even though he is forgiven. I, who would give my hand, could it avail, to call my brother's daughter my own and bring her up as such, have forfeited that right by my cruel and unfeeling conduct. My Lady Peckham has the right to dispose of Loveday, and it is her will that she should go to be brought up at the convent of Gray Nuns not far from Dartford." So there was no help for it. I had much ado to restrain my sobs, and I saw the gray eyes of the twins fill with tears. "But, uncle," I faltered and then stopped. "Loveday does not like the thought of being a nun!" said my aunt Joyce, finishing the sentence for me.