"To make my bread!" went on Ruth, absorbed in the vision of the valiant little Cornishman's attack on the three-headed monster. "Yes, and then there was _Tarlton's Jests_," she hurried on, all unconscious of the deepening frowns of Rumbold, "and _Guy of Warwick_, and--let me see, what came next? Why, to be sure, 'twas the _Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green_--'Pretty Bessee,' you know, father; and the history of the _Two Children in the Wood_, poor pretty dears! with a picture running all along atop of the page, showing all the sad woes they suffered, and ending up with the hanging of the cruel uncle. And then--well, I protest, there was such a heap, that I cannot remember them half. But I know he had _John Barleycorn_, because--well, father, it made me think"--and a merry smile rippled on Ruth's mobile lips--"of somebody we know, eh? and how they squeezed the poor old fellow to death. And then," chattered on Ruth, encouraged by the faint smile that dawned on the maltster's stolid face, "then there was _The World Turned Upside Down_. Well, I had half a mind for that; but just then I came upon this, and it looked the very best of all, and as I--" Ruth hesitated to explain that her resources had not reached to the purchase of all the chap-books she had coveted, and the thrilling woodcuts of the one she now held towards him had carried the day with her. "Well, 'twill divert you, I'm sure, father, dear." It was _The Seven Champions of Christendom_! "Seven dunderheads!" frowned Rumbold, turning the book's pages with a contemptuous finger. "Harkye, Ruth," he continued, in stern tones, "not a groat more of pocket-money will I waste on you till you have learned to spend it something more discreetly than on trash like this. I had rather see my money at the bottom of the moat than frittered so. Pah! dragons, forsooth, and fair captive ladies! and knights-errant, and saints--beshrew them, all! Mighty saints, I'll warrant me they were. Pagans in motley! Saint David of Scotland. If he set foot there now the presbytery would be for hanging him high as Holyrood tower. And Saint Patrick of Ireland, with his superstitious shamrock symbol, and Saint George of England." "Merry England, father," corrected Ruth. [Sidenote: A burning shame.] "Pah! pish! a seemly time this for England to be merry! when she needs bow her head even to the dust for the weight of her sins!" and he turned and threw the book angrily into the fire. "That for your chap-book saints!" "Now," thought poor Ruth, "he would be as cruel to them, if they were real flesh and blood men, as ever Bishop Bonner and Queen Mary were to the poor Protestant martyrs;" and silently, for she dared not trust herself to speak, she began to turn the pages of the volume on her knee; but Rumbold took it from her.