"Ha! You hold me lightly, as if I were goods and chattels to be disposed of as two men might arrange!" she cried, holding Herman off at arm's length, her pretty face full of laughter, and her eyes dancing. "What if I decline?" she asked saucily. "What if you decline, my pretty maid?" Herman asked. "When the morning comes I'll come, and what would you do in my strong arms if I picked you up, and carried you through the streets?" "And expose me to the ridicule of every passer-by," she exclaimed archly. "That way, whatever the passer-by may think, my little maid, rather than not at all." The day was ageing when a change came. She was telling her mother of things that had happened downstairs; the queer requests of some of the customers; the obstinacy of the new maid in the kitchen; the gloom on the face of one of the 'prentices because he had mistaken the day when his time expired, and he had two more weeks to serve; of an unusually large order that had come in--a dozen things like that; and the pale face of the suffering woman grew rosier, and the lips parted in smiles, and the mother chatted eagerly about her daughter's wedding. The joy passed suddenly, like a thunder-clap, and the old care returned, and more fiercely because she had thought it gone entirely. The twilight was coming as she sat at the window, telling her mother what was going on in the street, the workmen straggling off in ones and twos because the day's work was ended. It was not that which made the rosy cheeks white, and drove the love-light from her eyes, and made her heart beat with anxiety. Not that commonplace thing. Some men were moving along the street, and the sound came up to the open window, like the steady tramp of soldiers. Then she saw the City Guard. She had already seen them go by twice that day, but the conditions of the coming had changed. Two men were walking with the Captain of the Guard: one of them Cochlaeus; the other the Dean of the Senate, who never accompanied the Guard unless the business was of the most serious import. She hoped they would pass, but the soldiers ranged up in a double line before the door of her father's house, just as they had done in front of Herman's home; and then the Captain and the Dean followed Cochlaeus into the shop. She was dismayed and confounded, for her thoughts went to the cellar where the bundles were hidden away. These men had but to go there, and the mere presence of the press would lend suspicion as to its use in that unusual place. They had but to strip away one of the strong wrappers and they would see those printed sheets! "Mother, there is Mistress Amon passing!" she exclaimed, making that her excuse for leaving the room so abruptly. She was going down to face the trouble, for it must be that.