“Ay, but what to? Just tell me that. Old Turguia has some in her house, and she says they take never a bit of notice of our Lady nor Saint Helen, that she has upstairs and down; they just kneel down and fall a-praying anywhere. What sort of work do you call that?”
“I don’t know as I wish to call it anything in particular, without you’re very anxious,” replied Isel.
“But I am anxious about it, Aunt. These folks are in your house, and if they are witches and such like, it’s you and the girls who will suffer.”
“Well, do you think it’s much matter?” asked Isel, putting aside the lampreys, and taking up a bushel basket of Kentish pearmains. “If our Lady could hear me in one corner, I reckon she could hear me in another.”
“But to turn their backs on them!” remonstrated Anania.
“Well, I turn mine on her, when I’m at work, many a time of a day.”
“Work—ay. But not when you’re at prayer, I suppose?”
“Oh, it’ll be all right at last, I hope,” said Isel a little uneasily.
“Hope’s poor fare, Aunt. But I tell you, these folks are after no good. Why, only think! five of them got taken in by those rascals of Jews—three in Benefei’s house, and two at Jurnet’s. They’d never have taken them in, depend on it, if they hadn’t known they weren’t so much better than they should be.”
Agnes and Ermine understood none of these words, though they saw readily enough that the looks Anania cast upon them were not friendly. But Derette spoke up for her friends.