"I am often troubled myself about this same secrecy," said Jack. "It seems a kind of denial of the Master; and yet, for the present I see no other way." "Hush!" said Madam Barbara, "Here comes your father." "So! I find you in good company, son," cried Master Lucas with his usual jolly laugh. "I have been thinking you would be lonely. But where is poor Anne? Not at the church or chapel in this storm, I trust?" "Anne is not well, and is lying down, dear father, and Madam Barbara was kind enough to come and sit with me," said Jack. "How you find Dame Higby?" "Why, poorly—but poorly," replied Master Lucas, his sunny face clouding at remembrance of the grief he had witnessed. "You see, her poor man died suddenly and without the sacrament—some say he refused them, but that I do not believe; and he hath left her but poorly off. I doubt when all the expenses of the funeral are paid, she will have little left to live upon. We must remember her, Cicely, and not let her want." That night Jack put his Testament into Madam Barbara's hands, and the next day, he brought her a small copy from Master Fleming's store, now getting low. CHAPTER XIV. ANNE AT HOME. Jack had hoped his explanation with Anne would have cleared up matters between them; but to his sorrow, he found their intercourse was more constrained, and on a more uncomfortable footing, than ever. Anne's treatment of him had heretofore been rather negative than positive. She had avoided all private conversation with her brother, and had kept him at a distance; but that was all. Now, however, she was absolutely unkind and harsh, and that in a very vexatious way. She treated him with that sort of contempt so hard for young persons to bear. Jack was naturally fond of talking about his life and experiences in the country, and his father and Cicely liked to hear him; but Anne took special pains to show that she felt no interest in the matter. She constantly contradicted him, put wrong constructions on all he said and did, and seemed to find special pleasure in speaking slightingly of his most revered friends, Master Fleming and Sir William Leavett. Jack turned the tables on her one day by remarking on her inconsistency: "You are shocked at my father for finding fault with the pride and luxury of the prior, and the rapacity of Father Joseph, because, forsooth, you say we ought to reverence the clergy and not to criticise them; but I do not see why you are not just as bad yourself. Sir William is a priest, and an old priest as well; and one whom every one allows to be a man of most saintly life and conversation. Why is it not as irreverent in you to find fault with Sir William as it is in my father to laugh at the prior?"