opinion. The rosary and agate might have been picked up in an
ecclesiastical household, and the lid of the pouncet box was made of
a Spanish coin, likely to have come through some of the attendants
of Queen Katharine.

"It hath an appearance," he said. "I marvel whether there be still
at the Castle this archer who hath had speech with Master Randall,
for if ye know no more than ye do at present, 'tis seeking a needle
in a bottle of hay. But see, here come the brethren that be to sing
Nones--sinner that I am, to have said no Hours since the morn, being
letted with lawful business."

Again the unwilling Stephen had to submit. There was no feeling for
the incongruous in those days, and reverence took very different
directions from those in which it now shows itself, so that nobody
had any objection to Spring's pacing gravely with the others towards
the Lady Chapel, where the Hours were sung, since the Choir was in
the hands of workmen, and the sound of chipping stone could be heard
from it, where Bishop Fox's elaborate lace-work reredos was in
course of erection. Passing the shrine of St. Swithun, and the
grand tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, where his life-coloured effigy
filled the boys with wonder, they followed their leader's example,
and knelt within the Lady Chapel, while the brief Latin service for
the ninth hour was sung through by the canon, clerks, and boys. It
really was the Sixth, but cumulative easy-going treatment of the
Breviary had made this the usual time for it, as the name of noon
still testifies. The boys' attention, it must be confessed, was
chiefly expended on the wonderful miracles of the Blessed Virgin in
fresco on the walls of the chapel, all tending to prove that here
was hope for those who said their Ave in any extremity of fire or