"Oh, we forget that my poor child may be dead already!" she cried, with sharp agony, next moment. "I think and think of his hurting wounds. No pity will be shown a man whom they take to be a spy!" and she was shaken by a most piteous outburst of tears. Then Mary, as if the heart in her own young breast were made of love alone, tried to comfort Madam Wallingford. It was neither the first time nor the last. *XXX* *MADAM GOES TO SEA* "The paths to a true friend lie direct, though he be far away." The bright day had clouded over, and come to a wet and windy spring night. It was past eight o’clock; the darkness had early fallen. There was a sense of comfort in a dry roof and warm shelter, as if it were winter weather, and Master Sullivan and old Margery had drawn close to their warm fireplace. The master was in a gay mood and talkative, and his wife was at her usual business of spinning, stepping to and fro at a large whirring wheel. To spin soft wool was a better trade for evening than the clacking insistence of the little wheel with its more demanding flax. Margery was in her best mood, and made a most receptive and admiring audience. "Well, may God keep us!" she exclaimed, at the end of a story. "’T was as big a row as when the galleries fell in Smock Alley theatre. I often heard of that from my poor father." Master Sullivan was pleased with his success; Margery was not always so easy to amuse, but he was in no mind for a conflict. Something had made his heart ache that day, and now her love and approval easily rescued him from his own thought; so he went on, as if his fortunes depended upon Margery’s favor and frankly expressed amusement. "One night there was a long-legged apprentice boy to a French upholsterer; this was in London, and I a lad myself stolen over there from Paris with a message for Charles Radcliffe. He had great leanings toward the stage, this poor boy, and for the pride of his heart got the chance to play the ghost in Hamlet at Covent Garden. Well, it was then indeed you might see him at the heighth of life and parading in his pasteboard armor. ’Mark me!’ says he, with a voice as if you’d thump the sides of a cask. ’_I’ll mark you!_’ cries his master from the pit, and he le’pt on the stage and was after the boy to kill him; and all the lads were there le’pt after him to take his part; and they held off the master, and set the ghost in his place again, the poor fellow; and they said he did his part fine, and creeped every skin that was there. He’d a great night; never mind the beating that fell to him afterward!" The delighted listener shook with silent laughter.