“Good morrow, Father,” answered Agnes.
“Agnes, I would seek thy counsel.”
Agnes looked up in astonishment. He seek her counsel! Was it not she who had always sought his?
“Good lack, Father!” she exclaimed in her surprise.
John Laurence leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and made no further communication for some seconds.
“I know a Black Friar, Agnes,” he said, speaking slowly, as if weighing each word, “who seeth no cause, neither in God’s Word, neither in common reason, wherefore priests should not be wedded men, as thou wist that many, these ten years past, have been. But he is yet loth to break his mind unto the maid, seeing that many perils do now seem to lie in the way of wedded priests, and he cannot tell if it were well done or no, that he should speak unto her. If penalty fell on him, being thus wed, it should not leave her scatheless. Tell me, now, how thinkest thou?—should he do well to break his mind, or no? A maid may judge better than a man how a maid should take it.”
“I would think, Father,” answered the astonished Agnes, “that a maid which did truly love any man should not suffer uncertain sorrow to stand betwixt her and him.”
“Yet how, if it were certain?”
“Nay, nor so neither.”
“Go to! Put it this case were thine own. Shouldst thou be afeared to wed with a priest?”