gave him news of Chelsea.

"They are not very merry there," he said, "and I hardly suppose you
would wish them to be."

"Why not?" cried More, with a beaming face, "I am merry enough. I would
not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
have never been so happy."

He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward
Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very
gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for
fear of the King's displeasure.

"But I told him," said More, "not to trouble himself that I liked his
cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out
of his doors."

After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a
treatise called a "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation."

"It is to persuade myself," he said, "that I am no more a prisoner than
I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God's
prisoners."

Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good
humour.