aid, 'Dear maid, I can only aid you
by words! I could not keep you here. Your uncle the Cardinal would not
suffer you to abide here, nor can I take sisters save by consent of the
Queen--and now we have no Queen, of the King, and--'

'Oh no, I could not ask that,' said Eleanor, a deep blush mounting, as
she remembered what construction might be put on her desire to remain
in the King's neighbourhood. 'Ah! then must I go on--on--on farther from
home to that Court which they say is full of sin and evil and vanity?
What will become of me?'

'If the religious life be good for you, trust me, the way will open,
however unlikely it may seem. If not, Heaven and the saints will show
what your course should be.'

'But can there be such safety and holiness, save in that higher path?'
demanded Eleanor.

'Nay, look at your own kinswoman, Dame Lilias--look at the Lady of
Salisbury. Are not these godly, faithful women serving God through their
duty to man--husband, children, all around? And are the longings and
temptations to worldly thoughts and pleasures of the flesh so wholly put
away in the cloister?'

'Not here,' began Eleanor, but Mother Clare hushed her.

'Verily, my child,' she added, 'you must go on with your sister on this
journey, trusting to the care and guidance of so good a woman as my
beloved old friend, Dame Lilias; and if you say your prayers with all
your heart to be guarded from sin and temptation, and led into the path
that is fittest for you, trust that our blessed Master and our Lady will
lead you. Have you the Pater Noster in the vulgar tongue?' she added.

'We--we had it once ere my father's death. And Father Malcolm taught us;
but we have since been so cast about that--that--I have forgotten.'

'Ah! Father Malcolm taught you,' and Esclairmonde took the girl's hand.
'You know how much I owe to Father Malcolm,' she softly added, as she
led the maiden to a carved rood at the end of the cloister, and, before
it, repeated the vernacular version of the Lord's Prayer till Eleanor
knew it perfectly, and promised to follow up her 'Pater Nosters' with
it.

And from that time there certainly was a different tone and spirit in
Eleanor.

David, urged by his father, who still publicly ignored the young
Douglas, persuaded him to write to his father now that there could be no
longer any danger of pursuit, and the messenger Sir Patrick was sending
to the King would afford the last opportunity. George growled and
gr