"My son will be early. I am glad the vicar is going to give them a wholesome reminder of what they ought to know and do, as respectable citizens and members of the Church of England. It will help to stop this wild Quaker heresy, I trow."
The lady smiled and nodded her assent; but she was too impatient for her visitor to go to make any verbal reply to this, and as soon as she had closed the street door she went upstairs to a little room where a girl sat sewing.
"What is the matter, mother?" she asked as the lady seated herself, and buried her face in her hands.
For a minute or two the lady sat thus, and when she removed them she was looking white and anxious.
"Oh, Audrey, I wish I had never persuaded your father to—" But there she stopped, for the girl's wondering eyes told her she was speaking of things she had long ago resolved to bury in her own heart. "My dear, I want you to go and see your Aunt Martha," she said quickly.
"Aunt Martha?" repeated the girl in a tone of wonder.
"Have you forgotten her, Audrey? It is not so many years since you saw your aunt."
"But I thought you said she died in the time of the first plague," said the girl, still looking at her mother with a puzzled expression in her face, as if trying to recall some memory of the forgotten relative.
"Nathless you will remember her again when you see her," said Dame Lowe, in answer to her daughter's puzzled look. "I want you to go to her this afternoon, and say that the Widow Tompkins, who is the mother of one of her husband's 'prentice lads, hath been here with a tale about Quakers that is disgraceful to any godly household."
"The Widow Tompkins is always in a fright about something," returned Audrey slightingly. "What did she say about the Quakers and my Aunt Martha? What has she to do with them?"