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"And her Lady is of them?" asked Frideswide.

"She is not the angel," drily responded Avice.

"And her Lord?"—said Frideswide.

"Ah, he is sore to be pitied," answered Avice in a compassionate tone. "May-be he is not wholly an angel neither: yet methinks there is much in him that is good; and he might have been a better man—had she been a better woman. The first sin is an easy matter, but it is hard most times to see whither it will lead."

"Be any here well-affectioned toward Lollardy?" suddenly asked Frideswide.

"Only one, to my knowing."

"And that is?"—

"Mother Bonham.

"Avice Hilton!" came at this moment in clear tones from the closet.

"I cry you mercy, Mother!" was the natural reply.

"Days for talk, nights for sleep," said the old lady sententiously.

With simply a "Good night, Frideswide," Avice turned on her pillow, and no more was said.

This revelation by no means conduced to Frideswide's happiness. She was uneasy about Agnes, whom she knew to be a girl who would say little, but suffer keenly. Yet what could she do?—beyond taking Avice's counsel, and praying for her.

The idea of writing, either to her father or sister, did not occur to Frideswide. Letters were serious affairs in those days, more especially to women: and though Frideswide had learned to write, which was not too common an accomplishment in ladies, yet it was to her a very laborious and tedious business, requiring some decided reason to induce so great an effort. While there were at that time a sufficient number of women who could write, yet not to have acquired the art was considered no disgrace to a woman of any rank. In that interesting contemporaneous poem, "The Song of the Lady Bessy," we find the daughter of Edward IV. assuring Lord Stanley that there is no need to send for a scribe to write his important private letters, for she could write as well as any scrivener.

"You shall not need none such to call,

Good Father Stanley—hearken to me,

What my father, King Edward, that King royal,

Did for my sister, my Lady Welles,[#] and me: