SELWICK HALL, FEBRUARY YE XXVI.
This morrow, as I came down the stairs, what should I see but Aunt
_Joyce_, a-shaking the snow from her cloak and pulling off her pattens.
"Why, _Aunt_!" cried I. "Have you been forth thus early?"
Aunt _Joyce_ turned on me a very solemn face.
"_Milly_," saith she, "_Madge_ is in at the gate."
"O _Aunt_! have you seen her die?"
"I have seen her rise to life," she made answer. "Child, the Lord grant
to thee and me such a death as hers! It seemed as though, right at the
last moment, the mist that had veiled it all her earth-time cleared from
the poor brain, and the light poured in on her like a flood. `The King
in His beauty! The King in His beauty!' were the last words she spake,
but in such a voice of triumph and gladness as I never heard from her
afore. O _Milly_, my darling child! how vast the difference between the
being `saved so as by fire,' and the abundant entrance of the good and
faithful servant! Let us not rest short of it."
And methought, as I followed Aunt _Joyce_ into the breakfast-chamber,
that God helping me, I would not.
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Note 1. For many years after the Reformation the use of fish was made
compulsory in Lent, from the wish to benefit the fish trade. A licence
to eat flesh in Lent (obtained from the Queen, not the Pope) cost 40
shillings in 1599.