Cuthbert looked round cautiously; but there was no one listening to
the chatter of this pair of idlers in the window. Mistress Susan's
voice was heard below scolding the serving wench, and Martin Holt
was poring over some big ledger whilst Jemima called over the
figures of a heap of bills. Keziah was at her spinning wheel, which
hummed merrily in the red firelight; and Cherry was seizing
advantage of her aunt's absence to chatter instead of work.

Cherry had from the first been Cuthbert's confidante and friend. It
was taken for granted by this time that this should be so. Nobody
was surprised to see them often together, and Cherry had never
found the house on the bridge so little dull as when Cuthbert came
in night by night to give her the most charming and exciting
accounts of his doings and adventures. Once, too, she had gone with
him to see some sights. They had paraded Paul's Walk together, and
Cuthbert had been half scandalized and wholly astonished to see a
fine church desecrated to a mere fashionable promenade and lounging
place and mart. They had watched some gallants at their tennis
playing another day, and had even been present at the baiting of a
bear, when they had come unawares upon the spectacle in their
wanderings. But Cuthbert's ire had been excited through his
humanity and love for dumb animals, and Cherry had been frightened
and sickened by the brutality of the spectacle. And when Martin
Holt had inveighed against the practice with all a Puritan's
vehemence, Cuthbert had cordially agreed, and had thus drawn as it
were one step nearer the side of the great coming controversy which
his uncle had embraced.

These expeditions together had naturally drawn the cousins into
closer bonds of intimacy. Cherry felt privileged to ask questions