"They be dead against our parson, lad," returned Kenton, "and he says
they be against the Church and the King, though they do take the
King's name, it don't look like the right side to be knocking out
church windows, eh?"

"Nay!" said Steadfast, "but there's them as says the windows be
popish idols."

"Never you mind 'em, lad, ye don't bow down to the glass, nor worship
it. Thy blessed mother would have put it to you better than I can,
and she knew the Bible from end to end, but says she 'God would have
His worship for glory and for beauty in the old times, why not now?'"

John Kenton had an immense reverence for his late wife. She had been
far more educated than he, having been born and bred up in the
household of one of those gentlemen who held it as their duty to
provide for the religious instruction of their servants.

She had been serving-woman to the lady, who in widowhood went to
reside at Bristol, and there during her marketings, honest John
Kenton had won her by his sterling qualities.

Puritanism did not mean nonconformity in her days, and in fact
everyone who was earnest and scrupulous was apt to be termed a
Puritan. Goodwife Kenton was one of those pious and simple souls who
drink in whatever is good in their surroundings; and though the
chaplain who had taught her in her youth would have differed in
controversy with Mr. Holworth, she never discovered their diversity,
nor saw more than that Elmwood Church had more decoration than the
Castle Chapel. Whatever was done by authority she thought was right,