And now, after many weeks of pleasant comradeship, Cuthbert found himself in the unenviable position of standing rival to his friend in the affections of Cherry, and the more he thought about it the less he liked the situation. He could not give Cherry up--that was out of the question; besides, had he renounced her twenty times over, that would not improve Jacob's case one whit. Cherry was her father's own daughter, and, with all her kittenish softness, had a very decided will of her own. She was not the sort of daughter to be bought and sold, or calmly made over like a bale of wool. She would certainly insist on having a voice in the matter, and her choice was not likely at any time to fall upon the worthy but unprepossessing Jacob. All this Cuthbert understood with the quick apprehension of a lover; but it was very doubtful if Jacob would so see things, and Cuthbert felt as though there was something of treachery in accepting and returning his many advances of friendship whilst all the time he was secretly affianced to the girl for whose hand Jacob had made formal application, and had been formally accepted, though for the present, on account of the maiden's tender years, the matter was allowed to stand over. With Walter Cole there was no such hindrance to friendship, and just at this juncture Cuthbert prosecuted and confirmed his intimacy at that house by constant visits there. He was greedy of information and book learning, and in this narrow dim dwelling, literally stacked with books, papers, and pamphlets of all kinds, and partially given over to the mysteries of the printing press, seldom worked save at dead of night, Cuthbert's expanding mind could revel to its full content. He devoured every book upon which he could lay hands--history, theology, philosophy; nothing came amiss to him. He would sit by the hour watching Anthony Cole at work setting type, asking him innumerable questions about what he had been last reading, and finding the white-headed bookseller a perfect mine of information. Controversy and the vexed topics of the day were generally avoided by common consent. The Coles had learned through bitter experience the necessity for silence and reticence. Everybody knew them for ardent and devoted sons of Rome, and they were under suspicion of issuing many of the pamphlets against the policy of the King that raised ire in the hearts of the great ones of the land. But none of these "seditious" writings had so far been traced to them, and they still lived in comparative peace, although the tranquillity somewhat resembled that of the peaceful dwellers upon the sides of a volcanic mountain, within whose crater grumblings and mutterings are heard from time to time.