By the time Suddenly truly hits its stride about halfway through, my assumed resentment had given way entirely to admiration for Burnard's rippingly good characters and the deep intelligence with which she treats her ostensibly difficult subject.

Therefore you Preachers out vvith your ſvvords and ſtrike at the root; ſpeak againſt covetouſneſs, and cry out upon it. Stand not ticking and toying at the branches, nor at the boughs, for then there vvill be nevv boughs and branches ſpring again of them, but ſtrike at the root, […]

TRESPASS FOR INTERMEDDLING WITH A FEME. There are some curious decisions in the old books regarding this point of law, with which it may be useful to be acquainted. In Br. Ab. Tresp. 40, it is said that a man may aid a feme who falls upon the ground from a horse, and so if she be sick, and the same if her baron would murder her. And the same per Rede if the feme would kill herself. And per Fineux a man may conduct a feme on a pilgrimage. So where a feme is going to market, it is lawful for another to suffer her to ride behind him on his horse to market. (Br. Ab. Tresp. 207.) And if a feme says that she is in jeopardy of her life by her baron, and prays him (a stranger) to carry her to a justice of the peace, he may lawfully do it. (Br. Ab. Tresp. 207.) But where any feme is out of the way, it is not lawful for a man to take her to his house, if she was not in danger of being lost in the night, or being drowned with water. (Br. Ab. Tresp. 213.)

We two, she said, "will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is, With her five handmaidens, whose names Are five sweet symphonies, Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys.