Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lay on. Four angels to my bed, Two to bottom, two to head; Two to hear me when I pray, Two to bear my soul away. Probably Farmer Cudlip was not within. Had he been, the knock of Anthony would have been responded to by a loud and hearty call to come in. Anthony did not repeat the knock. It was of no use his entering that house if the master were out; he did not want to pass words with women folk. But he halted where he was in order to make up his mind whither he should go. He craved for--not exactly flattery, but something of that adulation which had been lavished on him by all alike--old and young, men and maids--when he was Anthony Cleverdon of Hall, and which had been denied him since he had become Anthony Cleverdon of Willsworthy. Under the humiliation he had received in his own house, under the sense of disgrace which he had brought on himself, first by his anger over the cradle, and the breaking it down with a blow of an iron bar; then, by his hand raised over an old man, defenceless; he felt a real need for adulation. He could not hold up his head, recover his moral elasticity till he had encountered some one who did not flaunt and beat him down. Fox--should he go and see Fox at Kilworthy? Fox was his friend; Fox had a sharp tongue and could say cutting things that would make him laugh, would shake the moths out of his fretted brain. Yes, he would go to Kilworthy and see Fox. As he formed this resolution he was conscious that he was false to himself. He did not want to see Fox. Fox would not look up to him with eyes full of loving devotion. Fox's colour would not flush to the cheek when he entered. Fox's pulses would not bound when his step was heard on the gravel. Fox would not in words encourage him to think well of himself, to esteem himself again as the old cock of the walk in plumage, instead of a wretched draggled fowl. No--he did not want to see Fox, but Fox's sister. He would go to Kilworthy to see, to hear Julian Crymes, but he repeated to himself--"I must have a talk with Fox." Then he heard the little child's voice upstairs repeating the Prayer of Prayers after its mother. "Forgive us our trespasses," said Mistress Cudlip. "Tespusses," said the child. "As we forgive them that trespass against us." "As we 'give them----" a pause. The mother assisted the little one, and it completed the sentence. "And lead us not into temptation." "And lead us not----" Anthony drew his cloak closer about him, shook the water from Solomon's hat, that he wore, and set it again on his head. "Into temptation," said the mother. "Lead us not into temptation," repeated the child. Anthony bent his head, and went out into the rain, went heedless of the warning that hammered at his heart, went wilfully--into temptation. CHAPTER XXXIV. A COLD WOOING.