Dorothy looked at the little man, and was in her turn a moment
silent.

'Then,' she said, 'we must see in these birds and blossoms, and that
great blossom in the sky, so many prophets of a peaceful time and a
better country, sent to remind us that we pass away and go to them.'

'Nay, my dear mistress Dorothy!' returned the all but obsequious
doctor; 'such thoughts do not well befit your age, or rather, I
would say, your youth. Life is before you, and life is good. These
evil times will go by, the king shall have his own again, the
fanatics will be scourged as they deserve, and the church will rise
like the phoenix from the ashes of her purification.'

'But how many will lie out in the fields all the year long, yet
never see blossoms or hear nightingales more!' said Dorothy.

'Such will have died martyrs,' rejoined the doctor.

'On both sides?' suggested Dorothy.

Again for a moment the good man stood checked. He had not even
thought of the dead on the other side.

'That cannot be,' he said. And Dorothy looked up again at the moon.

But she listened no more to the songs of the nightingales, and they
left the orchard together in silence.

'Come, Rowland, we must not be found here alone,' said Amanda, who