“Why, yes, mistress; and the King’s Grace is determined to make us keep it, it seems.”
He lifted his glass and finished it; and put out his hand again to the bottle.
“But that is a good work, surely,” smiled the other. “It will be surely a safeguard against surfeiting and drunkenness.”
Sir James rose instantly.
“Come, father,” he said to the staring monk, “you will be tired out, and will want your bed.”
A slow smile shone and faded on his wife’s face as she rose and rustled down the long hall.
Such incidents as this made life at Overfield very difficult for them all; it was hard for these sore hearts to be continually on the watch for dangerous subjects, and only to be able to comfort one another when the mistress of the house was absent; but above all it was difficult for Margaret. She was nearly as silent as her mother, but infinitely more tender; and since the two were naturally together for the most part, except when the nun was at her long prayers, there were often very difficult and painful incidents.
For the first eighteen months after her return her mother let her alone; but as time went on and the girl’s resolution persevered, she began to be subjected to a distressing form of slight persecution.
For example: Chris and his father came in one day in the autumn from a walk through the priory garden that lay beyond the western moat. As they passed in the level sunshine along the prim box-lined paths, and had reached the centre where the dial stood, they heard voices in the summer-house that stood on the right behind a yew hedge.