"Yes, my brother-in-law's widow, and I wish she were any where else!" said Dame Green, with a face of disgust. "Poor Thomas Green died bankrupt, and Mistress Jane hath no refuge but her brother's house." "And a very good refuge too!" said my aunt. "'Tis well for her that she hath such a home open to her." "She does not think so, madam. To hear her talk, one would think she was in banishment among the savages. I wish she were any where else than here, turning the girls' heads with her talk about tourneys and court fashions—much she ever saw of them! But here she comes to answer for herself." As she spoke, a woman entered the room dressed in widow's mourning. She must once have been pretty, in a coarse, bouncing fashion, and she wore her weeds with a kind of jaunty air. Dame Green presented her to my aunt. "Dear me, Mistress Holland, who would have expected to see you in the country to-day, of all days in the year!" cried the lady in a shrill, affected voice. "I should have thought you would have staid and taken the young ladies to see the spectacle. I have been fuming all the morning at being shut up in this wild place." We children looked at each other, wondering what great sight we had missed. My aunt replied gravely: "Such sights are far too sad and dreadful for young eyes. Indeed, I know not how any one can take pleasure in witnessing the horrible death of a fellow-creature." Mistress Jane looked a little abashed. "But these are heretics and blasphemers, madam! Surely you will allow that they deserve their deaths." "If we all had our deserts, we should be cast into a hotter fire than Smithfield!" said my aunt. "Even the fire that never can be quenched." Mistress Jane looked decidedly offended. "One would think you were one o' the Gospelers yourself, madam! For my part, I ever paid my dues to Holy Church and took the sacrament regular on the great feast days, and I have always given alms in charity—yes, to every begging friar that came along, besides making two pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and if that won't insure my salvation, I wonder what will? I'm not like some folks that grudge a poor widow so much as a jaunt to London," with a spiteful glance at her sister. "Every one knows 'tis a good work to assist at the burning of a heretic." We children glanced at each other again, which my aunt seeing, after exchanging a look with our hostess, said rather quickly— "If you have finished your dinners, children, you may run out and play." "Yes, to be sure!" said the dame. "Dolly, take the young ladies out and show them the new chickens and the little ducklings swimming in the pond."