"And promise to bring me up in the Catholic faith? Well, if that is not rich!--when I have got to bring him up! I will tell you what, David--if some benevolent saint would put a little common sense into the Church, it would be a blessing to somebody. `The Church!' I am weary of that ceaseless parrot scream. The Church stands in the way to Jesus of Nazareth, not as a door to go in, but as a wall to bar out. I wish we had lived in earlier days, before all that rubbish had had time to grow. Now, mind you," concluded Countess, as she rose to go to bed, "David and Christian, I don't mean to be bothered about this. Don't talk to me, nor to Rudolph, nor to any body else. I shall read the Book, and teach him to do it; but I shall not pray to those gilded things; and he shall not. What Gerhardt taught is enough for him and me. And remember, if too much be said, the King's officers may come and take every thing away. I do not see that it is my duty to go and tell them. If they come, let them come, and God be my aid and provider! Otherwise, we had better keep quiet." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. That little children were at times allowed to be sponsors in the Middle Ages, is proved by the instance of John Earl of Kent in 1330, whose brother and sister, the former probably under ten years of age, and the latter aged only eighteen months, stood sponsors for him. (_Prob. aet. Johannis Com. Kant._, 23 Edward Third, 76.) CHAPTER ELEVEN. WELL MET. "O God, we are but leaves upon Thy stream, Clouds in Thy sky." Dinah Mulock. A busy place on a Monday morning was Bread Street, in the city of London. As its name denotes, it was the street of the bakers; for our ancestors did not give names, as we do, without reason, for mere distinction's sake. If a town gate bore the name of York Gate, that was equivalent to a signpost, showing that it opened on the York road. They made history and topography, where we only make confusion.