At supper, Father John was the merriest of the party. Like many easy-going people he had the gift of putting far-off the evil day, and persuading himself that what he wished not to happen, never would happen. He had made what was for one of his habits a great sacrifice of ease and comfort to warn his young friend, and he was inclined to take the reward of his good deed. He praised Cicely's cooking, paid Anne various old-fashioned compliments, and made her very angry by telling her she was a foolish girl to wear out her youth in a nunnery. She had far better marry some stout young fellow and bring up a dozen of sturdy lads and maids to comfort her in her old age. "I would you could persuade her to do so," said the baker. "I have already told you, father, that I look upon myself as the vowed bride of the Church," said Anne with more asperity of tone and manner than altogether suited the character she avowed. "If I am to hear more such discourse, I shall retire from the table." "Hoity-toity!" said Father John; "Since when hath it been the fashion for maidens to threaten their fathers either natural or ghostly in such wise? But, come, I meant no offence. I did but say what I truly think. I am an old man, my daughter, and, though I am a priest, I have seen much more of life than you have, both in the cloister and out of it; and I tell you, in all seriousness, that a woman who brings up her children in honor and in the fear of God, does a more acceptable work in His eyes—ay, and bears more pains and penances, too—than any cloistered nun since the days of St. Bridget herself. Think you the vigil is not as acceptable which is passed in soothing and tending a sickly, suffering babe, as that which is spent in kneeling on a chapel floor?" "I should say so," said Cicely, much edified. "And yet nobody thinks of there being any merit in a wife's or mother's care of her family, because it just comes along in the course of life." "That is to say, it comes in the course of God's providence," said Jack. "The one state of life is God's appointment, and the other is man's invention." "I say not so much as that," said Father John hastily. "Doubtless the cloister is His appointment for some, as the family is for others. But come, Mistress Anne, since that is your name, be not displeased with me, who am a man old enough to be your father, and a priest beside, but pledge me in a cup of this sweet wine which is just fit for a maiden's drinking." "I thank you, but I drink no wine," said Anne coldly. "Anne, you are scarce civil," said her father. "I pray your reverence to pardon her ill manners." "Oh, let her have her way," said the old priest. "Caprice is the privilege of women, poor things, and it were hard to deprive them of it. Young maids love to say No. Eh, daughter?" he added, with his jolly laugh. "We all know what that means. The 'I will not' of a bishop-elect and that of a maiden come to much the same thing in the end."