me a service. As my secretary,
and having been known to have been a follower of the Beverleys, your
absence was considered strange, and it was intimated at high quarters
that you had gone to join the king's forces, and that with my knowledge
and consent. This I have from Langton; and it has in consequence
injured me not a little: but now your appearance will make all right
again. Now we will first to prayers, and then to breakfast; and after
that we will have a more detailed account of what has taken place since
your departure. Patience and Clara will not be sorry to recover their
companion; but how they will like you in that dress I cannot pretend to
say. However, I thank God that you have returned safe to us; and I
shall be most happy to see you once more attend in the more peaceful
garb of a secretary."

"I will, with your permission, sir, not quit this costume for one day,
as it may be as well that I should be seen in it."

"You are right, Edward: for this day retain it; to-morrow you will
resume your usual costume. Go down to the parlour; you will find
Patience and Clara anxiously waiting for you, I have no doubt. I will
join you there in ten minutes."

Edward left the room, and went downstairs. It hardly need be said how
joyfully he was received by Patience and Clara. The former, however,
expressed her joy in tears--the latter in wild mirth.

We will pass over the explanations and the narrative of what had
occurred, which was given by Edward to Mr Heatherstone in his own room.
The Intendant said, as he concluded--

"Edward, you must now perceive that, for the present, nothing more can
be done; if it pleases the Lord, the time will come when the monarch
will be reseated on his throne; at present, we must bow to the powers
that be; and I tell you frankly it is my opinion that Cromwell aims at
sovereignty, and will obtain it. Perhaps it may be better that we
should suffer the infliction for a time, as for a time only can it be
upheld, and it may be the cause of the king being more schooled and more
fitted to reign than, by what you have told me in the course of your
narrative, he at present appears to be."

"Perhaps so, sir," replied Edward. "I must say that the short campaign
I have gone through has very much opened my eyes. I have seen but
little true chivalric feeling, and much of interested motives, in those
who have joined the king's forces. The army collected was composed of
most discordant