the risk of appearing
inquisitive into other peoples' affairs. Answer me, therefore, Alice, my
dear child, has the Lady Mallerden instructed you in any portion of her
family story?"

"She has in some degree, Sir," said Alice Snowton, "but not deeply."

"You know of her disagreement on certain weighty points with her son,
the Lord Viscount, and how that he is a wicked man, seeking to break
into the pasture of the Lord, and tear down the hedges and destroy the
boundaries thereof; and that in this view he is minded to get his
daughter into his power, to use her as an instrument towards his
temporal elevation?"

"Something of all this we have heard, but not much," said Alice Snowton.

"And furthermore, I must tell you that overtures were made to me to aid
and assist in the resistance to be offered to this man of sin, and I
did, for deep and wholesome reasons, refuse my assent thereto, and in
this refusal I meant you, my children, to be included; therefore,
whatever propositions may be made to you, to hear, or know, or receive,
or in any manner aid, in the concealment of the Lord Viscount's
daughter--which is at present in charge of an honourable lady in the
north--I charge you, refuse them; they may bring ruin on an unambitious
and humble household, and in no case can do good. We must fear God ever,
and honour the king while he is entrusted with the sword of power; and
family arrangements we must leave to the strong hands and able head of
the great Lady Mallerden herself. In this caution I know I fulfil the
intentions of my honoured friend, your esteemed uncle, Mr William
Snowton, which is concerned with too many noble families to desire to
get into enmity with any--and therefore be grateful for all the kindness
you experience from my honoured lady; but if perchance she brings her
grandchild to the Court, and wishes to make you of her intimates, inform
me thereof; and greatly as it would be to be regretted, I would break
off the custom of your visits to the noble house, for even that honour
may be too dearly purchased by the enmity of powerful and unscrupulous
men--if with sceptres in their hands, so much the more to be held in
awe." And I ended with AEsopus his fable of the frogs and bulls. This
discourse (whereof I had prepared the heads in the course of the
morning) I delivered with the full force of my elocution, and afterwards
I dismissed them, leaving to my excellent wife the duty of enlarging on
the same topic, a