HAT FOLLOWED.

"O yet, in scorn of mean relief,
Let Sorrow bear her heavenly fruit!
Better the wildest hour of grief
Than the low pastime of the brute!
Better to weep, for He wept too,
Than laugh as every fool can do."

Hon. Robert Lytton.

"Heard you the news, friends?" asked Mr Holland, coming into the Lamb,
on the evening of the 14th of August.

"News!" cried Dr Thorpe. "I am aweary of the news. There is news every
day. My Lord A. to the Tower, and my Lord B. delivered thence; and my
Lord C. to the Marshalsea; and my Lord D. to the Fleet; and my Lord E.,
that yesterday carried the sword afore the Queen, to-day hath his head
struck off; and my Lord F., that was condemned to die yestereven, shall
bear the Queen's sword this morrow. Pshaw! I am tired of it. 'Tis a
game of tables [backgammon], with players that have no skill, and care
for nought saving to rattle the dice."

Mr Holland laughed a moment, but immediately grew grave.

"But heard you my news?" said he. "Do you know Father Rose is
deprived?"

All cried out together. They had looked for this indeed, but not now.
Six months thence, when the Protestant Bishops were all sequestered, and
the Prebendaries in the Marshalsea, Bishop Gardiner might stoop to
lesser game; but that one of the very first blows should be struck at Mr
Rose, this they had not expected. It showed how formidable an enemy he
was considered.

"Deprived!" cried all the voices together.

"Ay, 'tis too true," said Mr Holland. "As a preacher, we shall hear his
voice no more."

"The lambs are like to fare ill," growled Dr Thorpe, "when all the great
wolves be let forth in a pack."

"Ah, mine old friend!" answered John, "not many weeks gone, you said of
my Lord of Northumberland, `Will none put this companion in the Tower?'
Methinks so many henceforward will scarce be over, ere you may say the
like with tears of Stephen Gardiner. The fox is in the Tower; but the
wolf is out."

"You speak but truth," said Mr Holland. "And now, my masters, after
mine ill news, I fear you will scarcely take it well of me to bid you to
a wedding; yet for that came I hither."

"Is this a time for marrying and giving in marriage?" groaned Dr Thorpe.

"I think it is," answered Mr Holland, stoutly. "The more disease
[discomfort] a man hath abroad, the more comfort he lacketh at home."

"But who is to be married?" asked John.

"I am," answered Mr Holland. "Have you aught agains