"I shall remain with my cousin for a month or more, and hope to see you many times," said the merchant, "as well as to make the acquaintance of your good father. And is this my cousin's house? Truly it is a modest one."
"That large house farther up the street should be by right," said Jack, "but the old priest of St. Mary's lives in it, and hath done for forty years. He is very old and infirm, and our Father William will not let the old man be disturbed. He never thinks of himself or his own comfort."
"He was always self-sacrificing, sometimes almost recklessly so," replied the merchant. "Well, my young friend, I must bid you farewell for a time, but I will see you again. Remember what I have said to you, and be careful, for your own sake and that of others; yet let not your care lead you to the baseness of denying your Lord, be the risk what it may. Better a hundred deaths in one than that. May the Lord have you in His keeping."
Arrived in Bridgewater, Jack could almost have thought his absence a dream, everything looked so entirely unchanged. On entering the shop, however, he noticed two or three alterations. A great bowpot of sweet flowers and herbs stood on one end of the counter. The cakes and other matters in which Master Lucas dealt were arranged with more than usual neatness and taste, and an elderly kind-faced woman, dressed in black, whom Jack had never seen before, was arranging on a tray in the window some confections of a more delicious and choice description than Jack had ever seen there before. She started as he entered, and nearly let fall her tray.
"Lady! How you startled me, lad!" she exclaimed in a brisk, cheery voice. "You will be wanting Master Lucas now?"
"Is my father well, madam?" asked Jack, using unconsciously the title he would have employed in addressing a lady of rank, for there was something superior in the stranger's whole appearance.
"Good lack! You are then young Master Jack come home again. Your father will be right glad to see you. Here, Anne! Dame Cicely! Here is Master Jack come home."
Jack's wonder as to who the stranger could be was cut short by the entrance of Cicely and Anne from the dwelling-house and of his father from the bakery; and now he really felt himself at home again. Cicely kissed and hugged him, held him off at arm's length to see how well he looked, and then kissed him again. His father was not one whit behind, and even Anne warmed up for once and was almost genial. Jack thought her looking much worse than when he left home. She was paler and thinner than ever, and her eyes had a frightened, almost a guilty, expression. As soon as he was alone with Cicely, he began to question her about his sister.
"Well, she is much as usual, poor thing," said Cicely. "No great comfort to any one, nor yet to herself, poor dear. I doubt Sister Barbara was a great disappointment to her as it turned out, though she built much on her coming."
"Who is Sister Barbara?" asked Jack.