"There is still a bit of it left—yonder by that old tree!" answered Mistress Hall. "You may also see two or three of the cottages, but no one has been put there for a long time. My husband heard that the whole ground was to be granted to some great man about the court!" "What a shame!" said I. Mistress Hall put her finger on her lip. "Blame not the king—no, not in thy bed-chamber!" said she. "There are more than you that think so, but no one dares speak as things are now, and it behooves us specially to be careful, being always in danger of an attaint of heresy." "You are of the new religion then?" I ventured to say. "Nay, we are of the old religion—as old as the Word of God himself," said she smiling sweetly. "My husband, like my father, reads the Holy Scripture in his family every day. I suppose, dear maiden, it is new to you." I told her I had never seen more of it than I had read in mine uncle's great book as a child, adding that I had been taught to think it was at the peril of salvation that common, unlearned folk meddled with the word of Scripture, which was the reason that it was kept in the Latin. "The multitudes who followed our Lord on earth and listened to his blessed words, and the thousands who heard the discourses of Saint Peter and the other apostles, were doubtless most of them unlearned men. Yet our Lord and the apostles spoke to them in what was then the vulgar tongue!" said Mistress Hall, gently. "Did they then put these poor souls in peril of their salvation? And for what was the wonderful gift of tongues bestowed upon the apostles, save that the common people where they traveled might hear, each in the tongue wherein he was born, the wonderful works of God?" "I never thought of that!" said I. "And to tell you truth, Mistress Hall, I never thought much about it." "But you will think, dear maiden!" said she, with a sweet eagerness. "You will read and think, and ask for aid and light from above to understand." I had no time to make any promise, for at that moment one of the maids came to find us, with a message from Mistress Davis, that dinner would soon be ready. Mistress Hall thanked her, and asked after her mother. "It seems to me that I have seen you before," said I, as the maid answered that her mother was well. Cicely blushed and answered modestly that she remembered me quite well, adding: "But you were a very young lady then. Do you remember the night that you came with your uncle to Goodman's farm, and the kind gentleman gave Dame Goodman a piece of silver and bade her fill my pitcher?" "Oh yes; you are little Cicely Higgins," said I. "You went with your mother to live with John Blunt and his wife at the almshouse. What has become of them?" "They are both dead," answered the maid, quietly. Then making a courtesy, she went away. "That is a nice girl; I am glad she has so good a home," said I.