"Never give up hope, sister," said she. "Our good God has more weapons than we wot of, and more means of grace than are counted in any of our Catechisms and Confessions. Sometimes He can warm the coldest heart with the glow of a new human love until all the ice melts away from within. And the touch of a little child's hand has opened many a door, where the Master has afterwards come in and sat down and supped. When the Saviour wanted to teach the Pharisees, He set in the midst of them a little child." Aunt Dorothy shook her head. "Children have dragged many a godly man back again to Egypt," said she. "Many a rope which binds good men tight to the car of Mammon is twisted by very little hands." And the proposition being unanswerable, the discussion ended. A few nights afterwards we were roused by a suspicious glare in the direction of the Parsonage. The next morning early we went to see if anything had happened there. As we passed through the village, we heard the news quickly enough. Just after dusk, on the evening before, a party of Royalist troopers had appeared at the Parsonage gates. The house stood alone, at some little distance from the village, at the end of the glebe-fields. The captain of the little troop said they were on their way to join His Majesty at Oxford; but seeing a light, they were tempted to seek the hospitality of Mistress Nicholls, of which they had heard in the neighbourhood. Poor Placidia's protestations of poverty were of little avail with such guests. They politely assured her they were used to rough fare, and would themselves render any assistance she required towards preparing the feast. Whereupon they put up their horses in the stables, supplied them liberally with corn from, the granaries, seized the fattest of the poultry, and strung them in a tempting row before the kitchen fire, which they piled into huge dimensions with any wooden articles that came first to hand, chairs and chests included; the contents of these chests being meanwhile skillfully rifled, and all that was most valuable in them of plate, linen, or silk, set apart in a heap "for the king's service."