ily intercourse
with them. You have shown that discretion, Lucy, and it makes me happy to
think that you have learned much that will be of use to you in the life
which lies before you.'

'Dear Madam,' Lucy said, 'I owe you everything--more than tongue can tell;
and as long as you are fain to keep me near you, I am proud to stay.'

'I feel a strange calm and peace to-day,' Lady Pembroke said, as she leaned
out of the casement and looked down on the scene familiar to her from
childhood. 'It is the peace of the autumn,' she said; 'and I am able to
think of my father--my noble father and dear mother at rest in
Paradise--gathered in like sheaves of ripe corn into the garner--meeting
Ambrosia and the other younger children, whom they surrendered to God with
tears, but not without hope. I am full of confidence that Philip will win
fresh laurels, and I only grieve that the parents, who would have rejoiced
at his success, will never know how nobly he has borne himself in this war.
There will be news soon, and good Sir Francis Walsingham is sure to send it
hither post haste. Till it comes, let us be patient.'

It was the afternoon of the following day that Lucy Forrester crossed the
Medway by the stepping-stones, and went up the hill to Ford Manor.

It was her custom to do so whenever Lady Pembroke was at Penshurst. Her
stepmother was greatly softened by time, and subdued by the yoke which her
Puritan husband, who was now lord and master of the house and all in it,
had laid upon her.

As Lucy turned into the lane, she met Ned coming along with a calf, which
he was leading by a strong rope, to the slaughter-house in the village.

Ned's honest face kindled with smiles as he exclaimed,--

'Well-a-day, Mistress Lucy, you are more like an angel than ever. Did I
ever see the like?'

'Have you heard the good news, Ned?' Lucy asked. 'Mistress Gifford has her
boy safe and sound at Arnhem.'

Ned opened eyes and mouth with astonishment which deprived him of the power
of speech.

'Yes,' Lucy continued, 'and she is a free woman now, Ned, for her husband
is dead.'

'And right good news that is, anyhow,' Ned gasped out at last. 'Dead; then
there's one rogue the less in the world. But to think of the boy. What is
he like, I wonder? He was a young torment sometimes, and I've had many a
chase after him when he was meddling with the chicks. The old hen nearly
scratched his eyes out one day when he tapped the end of an egg to see if
he