The Friar remained silent for a moment, and Agnes spoke again.

"Father," she faltered, in a low, shy voice, "I heard you preach here yester-morrow."

"I brought thee glad tidings," was the significant answer.

The tears sprang to her eyes. "O Father!" she said, "I thought them so glad--that G.o.d loved me, and would have me for to love Him; but now 'tis all to no good. I cannot serve G.o.d."

"What letteth?"

"That I am in the world, and must needs there abide."

"What for no? Serve G.o.d in the world."

"Good Father, if you did but know, you should not say the same!" said Agnes in the same hopeless tone in which she had spoken before.

"If I knew but what?"

In answer, Agnes told him her simple story; unavoidably revealing in it the hardships of her lot. "You must needs see, good Father," she concluded, "that I cannot serve G.o.d and do Mistress Winter's bidding."

"I see no such a thing, good daughter," replied the Friar. "Dost think the serving of G.o.d to lie in the saying of Paternosters? It is thine heart that He would have. Put thine heart in thy labour, and give Him both together."

"But how so, Father?" inquired Agnes in an astonished tone. "I pray you tell me how I shall give to G.o.d the baking of bread?"

"Who giveth thee thy daily bread?"

"That, no doubt, our Lord doth."

"Yet He giveth the same by means. He giveth it through the farmer, the miller, and the baker. It falleth not straight down from Heaven. When thou art the bakester, art not thou G.o.d's servant to give daily bread?

Then thy work should be good and perfect, for He is perfect. By the servant do men judge of the master; and if thy work is to be offered unto G.o.d, it must be the best thou canst do. Think of this the next time thou art at work, and I warrant thee not to _forget_ the oven door.

But again: Who hath set thee thy work? When this hard mistress of thine betook thee to her house, did not G.o.d see it? did not He order it?

If so be, then every her order to thee (that is not sinful, understand thou) is G.o.d's order. Seek then, in the doing thereof, not to please her, but Him."

"O Father, if I could do that thing!"

"Child, when the Master went home for a season, and left His lodging here below, He appointed 'to every man his work.' Some of us have hard work: let us press on with it cheerfully. If we be His, it is _His_ work. He knoweth every burden that we bear, and how hard it presseth, and how sore weary are His child's shoulders. Did He bear no burdens Himself in the carpenter's workshop at Nazareth; yea, and up the steep of Calvary? Let Him have thy best work. He hath given thee His best."

Never before, nor in so short a time, had so many new ideas been suggested to the mind of Agnes Stone. The very notion of Christ's sympathy with men was something strange to her. She had been taught to regard Mary as the tender human sympathiser, and to look upon Christ in one of two lights--either as the helpless Infant in the arms of the mother, or as the stern Judge who required to be softened by Mary's merciful intercession. But the one gush of confidence over, she was doubly shy. She shrank from clothing her vague thoughts with precise and distinct language.

"I would I might alway confess unto you, Father," she said gratefully, rising from her hard seat "I would have thee confess unto a better than I, my daughter," was the priest's answer. "There is no confessor like to the great Confessor of G.o.d. Christ shall make never a blunder; and He beareth no tales. Thine innermost heart's secrets be as safe with Him as with thyself."

"But must I not confess to a priest?" demanded Agnes in a surprised tone.

"There is one Priest, my daughter," said the Friar. "And 'because He continueth ever, unchangeable hath He the priesthood.' There can be none other."

This was another new idea to Agnes--if possible, more strange than the former. She ventured a faint protest which showed the nature of her thoughts.

"But He, that is the Judge at the doomsday! how could such as I e'er confess to Him?"

A smile--which was sad, not mirthful--parted the grave lips of the Black Friar.

"Child!" he answered, "there is no man so lowly, there is no man so loving, as the Man Christ Jesus."

Agnes was so deep in thought that she did not hear his retreating steps.

She looked up with a further remark on her lips, and found that he was gone.

It was nearly dark now, and there was only just time to reach the City gate before the hour when it would be closed. Agnes hurried on quickly, pa.s.sed out of Newgate, and, afraid of being benighted, almost ran up Giltspur Street to the south end of Cow Lane. A hasty rap on Mistress Flint's door brought little Will to open it.

"Good lack!" said the child. "Mother, here is Mistress Agnes Stone."

"What, Agnes!" cried Mistress Flint's cheery voice from within. "Come in, dear heart, and welcome. What news to-night, trow?"

"The old news, my mistress," said Agnes, smiling, "that here is a supperless maid bereft of lodgment, come to see if your heart be as full of compa.s.sion as aforetime."

"Lack-a-daisy! hath Gossip Winter turned thee forth? Well, thank the saints, there is room to spare for thee here. Supper will be ready ere many minutes, I guess. Prithee take hold o' th' other end of Helen's work, and it shall be all the sooner."

Helen Flint, who was busy at the fire, welcomed the offered help with a bright smile like her mother's, and set Agnes to work at once. The latter was beginning to find herself very hungry, and Mistress Flint treated her guest to considerably better fare than Mistress Winter did her drudge. There were comparatively few of the household at home to supper; for the party consisted only of Mr and Mrs Flint, two daughters, Helen and Anne, and the little boys, Will and d.i.c.kon.

"What news abroad, Goodman?" demanded Mistress Flint, when her curiosity got the better of her hunger.

"Why, that 'tis like to rain," returned her husband, a quiet, un.o.btrusive man, with a good deal of dry humour.

"That I wist aforetime," retorted she; "for no sooner set I my foot out of the door this morrow than I well-nigh stepped of a black snail."

"I reckon," observed Mr Flint, calmly cutting into a pasty, "that black snails be some whither when there is no wet at hand."

"Gramercy, nay!" cried unphilosophical Mistress Flint.

"Oh, so?" said he. "Fall they from the sky, trow, or grow up out o' th'

ground?"

"Dear heart [darling, beloved one], Jack Flint! how can I tell?"

answered his wife.

"Then, dear heart, Mall Flint!" responded he, imitating her, "I'd leave be till I so could."

Mistress Flint laughed; for nothing ever disturbed her temper, and the banter was as good-humoured as possible.

"Well, for sure!" said she. "Is there ne'er a man put in the pillory, nor a woman whipped at the cart-tail, nor so much as a strange fish gone by London Bridge? Ha, Nan! yonder's a stranger in the bars. Haste thee, see what manner of man."

Anne left the form on which she was sitting, and peered intently into the grate.

"'Tis a dark man, Mother," said she, after careful investigation.

"Is he nigh at hand?" inquired Mistress Flint anxiously.

"I trow so," replied Anne, still occupied with the bars, "and reasonable rich to boot."

"Marry, yonder's a jolly hearing!" said her mother.