"Heyday!" he exclaimed. "Here is the sun at last, to be sure, and a welcome sight after all the cloudy days we have had of late. Well, well! The sun always shines at last, that is one comfort. Eh, Mary Brent?" he added, addressing himself to a pale and poorly clad woman who had just entered the shop. The poor woman shook her head sadly. "I suppose it does, somewhere," said she, "but little of it comes my way of late years." "And that is true," said the baker kindly. "You have had your troubles and trials these many years; but your children will soon be growing up to help you, that is one comfort; and nobody ever had an ill word for you, that's another. You will be wanting one of my new brown loaves now. Here, Simon, a brown loaf for Dame Brent." "Not so, Master Lucas," replied Mary Brent. "You are very good, but I dare not take the loaf. I owe you more now than I shall ever be able to pay—" "Nonsense, woman!" interrupted the baker. "The children must eat." "And I came to ask you if you would just wait on me a little longer. I hope my son will be home and bring me some money next month; he is a dutiful lad for all they say of him; and till then we must rub on somehow." "Look here, dame!" said the baker, in a somewhat angry tone. "Have I ever asked you for my money?" "No, Master Lucas, you have been very forbearing, but—" "But me no buts!" interrupted Master Lucas. "Take the loaf and go your way, woman, unless you will stop to supper with us; and as for the money, when I want it, I will ask for it." "I thank you with all my heart," said the woman, evidently relieved from some great anxiety. "My poor children must needs have gone supperless to bed, but for your bounty." "How then?" demanded the baker. "Did you not get your share of the dole at the convent gate this morning? I saw old Margery carrying home a fine beef-bone, and surely you have as good a right as she—the old mumping beggar that she is!" "Nay," replied poor Mary, smiling sadly. "I get nothing now from the convent, less or more. The fathers were so angry with poor Davy for preferring rather to go to sea than to become a lay brother, that they say they will do nothing for me. And that is not the worst either. They say my husband was a believer in the new doctrines, and accuse me of the same, though there is no one in Bridgewater who keeps her church more closely than I. New doctrines or not, he was a good husband to me, and never let me want, or lost a day's work through drink or idleness." "And that is more than many of them can say," returned the baker. "Out on them one and all for a set of lazy crows, preying on other folks' substance!"