ce that greeted them made them give a cry of
amusement and surprise. Lady Thistlewood, whose regrets that each of her
girls was not a boy had passed into a proverb, had at length, in Dolly's
seventh year, given birth to a son on Midsummer Day.

'Well,' said Philip, sighing, 'we must drink his health tonight! It is
well, if we are to rot here, that some one should make it up to them!'

'And join Walwyn and Hurst!' said Berenger; and then both faces grew
much graver, as by these letters, dated three months since, they
understood how many they must have missed, and likewise that nothing had
been heard of themselves since they had left Paris sixteen months ago.
Their letters, both to their relations and to Sir Francis Walsingham,
had evidently been suppressed; and Lord North, who had succeeded
Walsingham as ambassador, had probably been misled by design, either
by Narcisse de Nid-de-Merle himself, or by some of his agents, for Lord
Walwyn had heard from him that the young men were loitering among the
castles and garrisons of Anjou, leading a gay and dissipated life,
and that it was universally believed that the Baron de Ribaumont had
embraced the Catholic faith, and would shortly be presented to Henry
III. to receive the grant of the Selinville honours, upon his
marriage with his cousin, the widow of the last of the line. With much
earnestness and sorrow did good old Lord Walwyn write to his grandson,
conjuring him to bethink himself of his some, his pure faith, his loving
friends, and the hopes of his youth: and, at least, if he himself had
been led away by the allurements of the other party, to remember that
Philip had been intrusted to him in full confidence, and to return him
to his home. 'It was grief and shame to him,' said the good old man,
'to look at Sir Marmaduke, who had risked his son in the charge of one
hitherto deemed trustworthy; and even if Berenger had indeed forgotten
and cast away those whom he had once seemed to regard with love and
duty, he commanded him to send home Philip, who owed an obedience to
his father that could not be gainsaid.' Lord Walwyn further bade his
grandson remember that the arrangements respecting his inheritance had
been made in confidence that his heir was English in heart and faith,
and that neither the Queen nor his own conscience would allow him to let
his inheritance pass into French of Papist hands. There was scarcely a
direct reproach, but the shaken, altered handwriting sho