"They will never put any such thing in my church—chained or unchained—that I know," said Sister Sacristine, with great emphasis, and in her earnestness emptying the peas in her lap among the cods in the basket. "I would tear up the book with my own hands, before such things should be allowed near to the shrine of the Holy Magdalene. Thank the saints, we are not subject either to bishop or archbishop, but to our own visitor, and I am very sure he would never order such a thing." "In that case, it is hardly worth while to waste one's breath discussing the matter," said mother assistant. "Loveday, you had better pick up the peas that Sister Sacristine has scattered. It is a pity they should be wasted." "There is no telling what will happen—no telling," said a very old sister, who was warming herself in the sun. "I have strange visions—I do. I saw last night the walls of the fold pulled down, and the sheep scattered far and wide. But I hope it won't come in my time. I have lived here in these very walls almost eighty years, and I don't want to live any where else." "No, there is no telling, and therefore we may dismiss the subject," said mother assistant. "When they come to ask us to chain a Bible in our church, it will be time for us to refuse it. 'Each day's trouble is sufficient for the same selfe day.'" The striking of the bell warned us of the end of recreation, and sent us about our several tasks; but the mother's words lingered in my ears, and I found myself wondering again and again where I had heard them before. At last I remembered; I had read them in my uncle's great book—Master Tyndale's book of the New Testament, as I afterward knew it to be—on the very first day that I came to London. Well, the days went on, and though we heard rumors of this and that—of the disgrace of poor Queen Katherine (which I do maintain was an infamous shame), and the marriage of the King with Anne Boleyn, mother of our present good Queen—of the burning of heretics here and there, and the king's taking church matters more and more into his own hands—though, as I say, we heard rumors of all these things, they did not greatly disturb our peace. Our gray circling walls were like the magic circle of the enchanter, and though strange and malign shapes were seen in very active exercise outside its bounds, yet none had as yet broken through. But our time was to come. It was on a pleasant day in the end of September, in the year of grace 1538, that the first blow fell upon us. By the same token we had, on that very day, buried old Turk in the garden under a beautiful laylock tree. The poor old cat had been very decrepit for a long time, having lost most of his teeth, so that he had to be fed with hashed meat, and bread soaked in cream. Old Adam had said more than once that the poor thing would be better put out of his pain, but I don't believe you could have hired him to do the deed—no, not with a Dutch tulip-root.