beheld for a moment a weird exulting grimace on a visage peeping
over a neighbouring headstone.

"It is he! it is he! The wicked imp! There's no peace for him! I
say," she screamed, "see if you don't get a sound flogging!" and she
clenched her little fist as the provoking "Ho! ho! ho!" rang farther
and farther off. "Don't cry, Anne dear; the Dean and Chapter shall
take order with him, and he shall be soundly beaten. Are you hurt?
O nurse, her mouth is all blood."

"I hope she has not broken a tooth," said nurse, who had been
attending to the sobbing child. "Come in, my lamb, we will wash
your face, and make you well."

Anne, blinded with tears, jarred, bruised, bleeding, and bewildered,
submitted to be led by kind nurse the more willingly because she
knew that her mother, together with all the quality, were at Sir
Thomas Charnock's. They had dined at the fashionable hour of two,
and were to stay till supper-time, the elders playing at Ombre, the
juniors dancing. As a rule the ordinary clergy did not associate
with the county families, but Dr. Woodford was of good birth and a
royal chaplain, and his deceased brother had been a favourite
officer of the Duke of York, and had been so severely wounded by his
side in the battle of Southwold as to be permanently disabled.
Indeed Anne Jacobina was godchild to the Duke and his first Duchess,
whose favoured attendant her mother had been. Thus Mrs. Woodford
was in great request, and though she had not hitherto gone into
company since her widowhood, she had yielded to Lady Charnock's
entreaty that she would come and show her how to deal with that
strange new Chinese infusion, a costly packet of which had been