Part 19 (2/2)

When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed; then rising, kissed the executioner, and said:

'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office My neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry' As he spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with hi it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his head on the block

Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not tie his conscience to another man's back, for he had no enee put them to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to no one After his death, his head, as was the custom, was placed on a stake, and shown as the head of a traitor on London Bridge for a aret Roper bribed ait round with spices, she hid it in a safe place It is possible that she laid it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, in St Dunstan's Church in Canterbury, but she herself lies with her mother, in the old church of Chelsea, where sir Thos hen he heard that the act of vengeance had been accomplished we know not, but the elish ambassador, sir Thomas Eliott

'My Lord a your master hath put his faithful servant sir Thomas More to death'

Whereupon sir Tho thereof'

'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this ill say, that had we been s ourselves have had these many years no small experience, ould rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor'

THE LITTLE ABBESS

A nun!

As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the h the streets, with black dresses and flappy white caps, to visit their poor people If you look at their faces, you will notice how curiously s any enerally quiet and contented, while the woe who live in the world appear tired and anxious

The other picture is one that most of us have toit This nun is also dressed in black robes, and has a flowing black veil, and a white band across her forehead, under which her hair, cut short when she takes her vows, is hidden away She never leaves her convent, except for a walk in the garden, but she often has children to teach, for reat Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take care that they can tell their scholars about the discoveries of the present day: about wireless telegraphy, about radiues in the boundaries of kingdos

Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each with its own rules, and some, the strictest, do not admit anyone inside the convent at all, even into a parlour After a girl has taken the veil, she is allowed to receive one visit froood-bye to the in Paris towards the end of the sixteenth century, when Catherine de Medicis was queen-, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have found this picture of a convent very far from the truth Convents were comfortable and even luxurious houses, richly endohere poor noble on their entrance what h to portion one or two girls--generally the prettiest of the family--or to help the son to live in state If, as often happened, the father did not offer enough, the abbess would try to get ether If she was accepted, he bade her farewell for the ti that he could see her whenever he chose, and that she would lead quite as pleasant and as a an existence as her ht even be allowed to wear coloured clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of the nuns hite and scarlet; but even if the archbishop, or the abbot, or the king, or whoever had supre worn, why, it would be easy to h to the fashi+on to look picturesque; and could not the dress be of satin and velvet and lace, and yet be black and white still?

As to food, no one was e convent, or else the fine gentleant ladies would not come from Paris or the country round to her suppers and private theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to the balls for which she was fas to sit with their friends and listen toas to walk a little way along the road to Paris till the nuns reached a stretch of s ht?

No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when Henry IV was king

Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past, and it was a girl of sixteen who set her hand to the work

The family of the Arnaulds ell known in French history as soldiers or lawyers--sorandfather of the child whose story I aht horse in ti a Huguenot--that is, a Protestant--Catherine's trusted lawyer and adviser This Antoine Arnauld, or M de la Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted by a noble whose claied to refuse

[Illustration: 'You areme for somebody else']