"You may both quarrel with Anania whenever you please," replied Manning calmly; "I've nothing to say against that. But you are not to make excuses for those heretics, nor to express compassion for them. Now those are my orders: don't let me have to give them twice." "No, Father; you shall not, to me," said Flemild in a low tone. "I can't promise you nothing," said Isel, wiping her eyes on her apron, "because I know I shall just go and break it as fast as it's made: but when I can, I'll do your bidding, Manning. And till then, you'll have either to thrash me or forgive me--whichever you think the properest thing to do." Manning walked away without saying more. Snow, snow everywhere!--lying several inches deep on the tracks our forefathers called roads, drifted several feet high in corners and clefts of the rocks. Pure, white, untrodden, in the silent fields; but trampled by many feet upon the road to Dorchester, the way taken by the hapless exiles. No voice was raised in pity, no hand outstretched for help; every door was shut against the heretics. Did those who in after years were burned at the stake on the same plea suffer more or less than this little band of pioneers, as one after another sank down, and died in the white snow? The trembling hands of the survivors heaped over each in turn the spotless coverlet, and then they passed on to their own speedy fate. The snow descended without intermission, driving pitilessly in the scarred faces of the sufferers. Had they not known that it came from the hand of their heavenly Father, they might have fancied that Satan was warring against them by that means, as the utmost and the last thing that he could do. But as the snow descended, the song ascended as unceasingly. Fainter and less full it grew to human ears, as one voice after another was silenced. It may be that the angels heard it richer and louder, as the choristers grew more few and weak. Of the little family group which we have followed, the first to give way was Agnes. She had taken from her own shivering limbs, to wrap round the child, one of the mutilated garments which alone her tormentors had left her. As they approached Nuneham, she staggered and fell. Guelph and Adelheid ran to lift her up. "Oh, let me sleep!" she said. "I can sing no more." "Ay, let her sleep," echoed Gerhardt in a quivering voice; "she will suffer least so. Farewell for a moment, my true beloved! We shall meet again ere the hour be over."