About this time, when my sight, after a few months' privation, was fully restored, I first imbibed the strength of Protestantism as deeply as it can be imbibed apart from spiritual understanding, Norwich was infamously conspicuous in persecuting unto death the saints of the Most High, under the sanguinary despotism of popish Mary; and the spot where they suffered, called the Lollard's pit, lies just outside the town, over Bishop's bridge, having a circular excavation against the side of Moushold-hill. This, at least to within a year or two ago, was kept distinct, an opening by the road-side. My father often took us to walk in that direction, and pointed out the pit, and told us that there Mary burnt good people alive for refusing to worship wooden images. I was horror-stricken, and asked many questions, to which he did not always reply so fully as I wished; and one day, having to go out while I was inquiring, he said, "I don't think you can read a word of this book, but you may look at the pictures: it is all about the martyrs." So saying, he placed on a chair the old folio of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, in venerable black-letter, and left me to examine it. Hours passed and still found me bending over, or rather leaning against that magic book. I could not, it is true, decipher the black-letter, but I found some explanations in Roman type, and devoured them; while every wood-cut was examined with aching eyes and a palpitating heart. Assuredly I took in more of the spirit of John Foxe, even by that imperfect mode of acquaintance, than many do by reading his book through; and when my father next found me at what became my darling study, I looked up at him with burning cheeks and asked, "Papa, may I be a martyr?" "What do you mean, child?" "I mean, papa, may I be burned to death for my religion, as these were? I want to be a martyr." He smiled, and made me this answer, which I have never forgotten: "Why, Charlotte, if the government ever gives power to the Papists again, as they talk of doing, you may probably live to be a martyr."