“But what then of our Lady?”
“Wherefore should there be aught beyond what God hath told us?” replied Friar Laurence. “She was ‘highly favoured’ and ‘blessed among women,’ in that she was the mother of the Saviour. Must she needs be the Saviour to boot?”
“But we must worship her, trow?”
“Must we so? ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’ Let us hold by God’s Word, my daughter.”
“Father, I wis so little thereof! nought at all but what I do hear of you,” said Agnes with a sigh.
“Then, my child,” he replied gently, “list thou the better. And here is a word for thee, and for all other in thy place: ‘If any man do desire to do God’s will, he shall know whether doctrine be truth or no.’ Keep that desire ever sharp on the whetstone of prayer. Then, surely as God is in Heaven, thou shalt know.”
The next minute he was gone.
“Agnes, sweet-heart!” demanded Dorothy that evening, in the sugary style which she only used when she was in a particularly tormenting mood, “prithee do me to wit of the name of thy dear friend, Master Black Friar? I beheld him and thee in so sweet converse at the Cross, it caused me to sigh that I had no such a friend as he. I pray thee lovingly of his goodly name?”
The answers which Dorothy usually received from Agnes to questions of this kind were as short as civility permitted.
“Master John Laurence,” said she.