"Only one that I know of now. I should like to be a priest, that I might read the Bible. Did you ever see a Bible in the convent, Anne?"
"No, never," replied his sister. "I dare say there might be one in the library, for they had great store of books both written and printed; but no one ever meddled with them, except that the librarian used to take them out and dust and air them once or twice a year."
"But what did you do?" asked Jack. "You must have had a great plenty of time."
"Not so much as you think. There were the daily services, and the hours of silence, and the embroidery, and the making of sweetmeats and comfits for sale and for feast-days, and other things besides. There was very little time for reading."
"But you had reading at meals," persisted Jack. "What did they read to you?"
"Homilies, and lives of the saints, and such like," replied Anne.
"And were not some of those taken from the Bible?"
"How should I know, when, as I told you, I never saw a Bible?" asked Anne, in a tone of some little irritation. "The Bible is not for common folks and laymen like you and me. Father Barnabas said it was by reading the Bible in the vulgar tongue that the rebellion was got up long ago in the days of Lord Cobham and the Lollards."
"That is curious, though," said Jack, meditatively.
"What is curious?"